UNIVERSITY  OF 
CALIFORNIA 

DIEGO 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

RK  •    BOSTON  •   CHICAGO  •   DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •    SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LIMITED 

LONDON  •    BOMBAY  •    CALCUTTA 

MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  LTD. 

TORONTO 


THE 
NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

AN  ESSAY  TOWARD  THE 
COMING    RENAISSANCE 


BY 
ROY  WOOD  SELLARS,  Ph.D. 

Author  of  "Critical  Realism,"  "The  Next 
Step  in  Democracy,"  etc. 


U3eto  gotk 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
1918 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYBIGHT,  1918 

BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,   August,   1918 


TO 

HELEN  STALKER  SELLARS 
THIS  BOOK  IS  DEDICATED 


FOREWORD 

The  purpose  of  this  book  is  positive  and  construc- 
tive, although  it  may  not  at  first  appear  such  to  the 
reader  whose  inherited  beliefs  are  freely  challenged. 
But  let  the  reader  ponder  the  fact  that  the  deepest 
spiritual  life  has  always  concerned  itself  with  the  ap- 
preciation and  maintenance  of  values.  He  who  ac- 
knowledges, and  wishes  to  further,  human  values  can- 
not be  said  to  be  irreligious  or  unspiritual. 

The  center  of  gravity  of  religion  has  been  openly 
changing  for  some  time  now  from  supernaturalism  to 
what  may  best  be  called  a  humanistic  naturalism.  The 
history  of  this  change  is  traced  in  many  of  the  chapters 
of  the  book.  There  have  been  many  steps  forward  in 
the  past,  for  every  age  must  possess  its  own  religion, 
a  religion  concordant  with  its  knowledge  and  expressive 
of  its  problems  and  aims.  The  sincerity  and  ade- 
quacy with  which  this  necessary  task  is  done  measures 
the  spiritual  greatness  of  the  particular  age. 

I  have  called  the  book  The  Next  Step  in  Religion 
because  the  time  is  ripe  for  one  of  the  great  steps  for- 
ward. The  setting  of  religion  must  be  adjusted  to 
man's  knowledge.  Let  it  not  be  feared  that  man's 
spiritual  life  will  be  injured  thereby.  Rather  will  it 
be  made  saner,  healthier  and  more  creative. 

The  first  phase  of  religion  reflected  man's  helpless- 
ness and  fear.  He  peopled  his  surroundings  with  con- 
scious powers,  sometimes  adverse,  sometimes  friendly, 


FOREWORD 

but  always  jealous.  Man  became  their  slave.  As  man 
became  less  of  a  savage,  these  gods  of  his  fancy  be- 
came nobler.  But  they  still  acted  like  magnets  to 
draw  his  attention  away  from  his  own  problems.  The 
coming  phase  of  religion  will  reflect  man's  power  over 
nature  and  his  moral  courage  in  the  face  of  the  facts 
and  possibilities  of  life.  It  will  be  a  religion  of  action 
and  passion,  a  social  religion,  a  religion  of  goals  and 
prospects.  It  will  be  a  free  man's  religion,  a  religion 
for  an  adult  and  aspiring  democracy. 

A  book  must  in  the  main  carry  its  own  credentials. 
But  there  may  be  those  who  will  wish  to  carry  the 
quest  further  and  deeper.  To  those  interested  in  my 
share  in  this  larger  work  I  may  mention  my  Critical 
Realism  and  The  Next  Step  in  Democracy. 

R.  W.  SELLAKS. 

Ann  Arbor,  Michigan, 
August  5,  1918. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I     SUGGESTIONS 1 

II     THE  AGE  OF  MYTH 13 

III  STORIES  OF  CREATION 30 

IV  MAGIC  AND  RITUAL 44 

V     THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY 58 

VI     THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH 72 

VII     THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY         ...  84 

VIII     THE  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  SCIENCE  AND  THEOL- 
OGY      98 

IX     THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY  .      .      .      .110 

X     Do  MIRACLES  HAPPEN? 123 

XI     THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY 138 

XII     THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 153 

XIII  RELIGION  AND  ETHICS 169 

XIV  THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  INSTITUTION  —  THE  CATH- 

OLIC CHURCH 187 

XV     THE    CHURCH    AS    AN    INSTITUTION  —  PROTES- 
TANTISM           198 

XVI     THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION 211 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

CHAPTER  I 
SUGGESTIONS 

MORE  than  people  are  consciously  aware,  a  new  view 
of  the  universe  and  of  man's  place  in  it  is  forming.  It 
is  forming  in  the  laboratories  of  scientists,  the  studies 
of  thinkers,  the  congresses  of  social  workers,  the  as- 
semblies of  reformers,  the  studios  of  artists  and,  even 
more  quietly,  in  the  circles  of  many  homes.  This  new 
view  is  growing  beneath  the  old  as  a  bud  grows  beneath 
its  covering,  and  is  slowly  pushing  it  aside.  While  the 
inherited  outlook,  still  apparently  so  strong,  is  losing 
effectiveness  and  becoming  a  thing  of  conventions  and 
phrases,  the  ideas  and  purposes  which  are  replacing  it 
possess  the  vigor  and  momentum  of  contact  with  the 
living  tendencies  and  needs  of  the  present. 

Mankind  grows  away  from  its  traditional  beliefs  as 
inevitably  as  does  the  boy  or  girl  from  childhood  fancies, 
and  often  with  much  the  same  lack  of  realization.  But 
the  time  is  certain  to  come  to  both  when  the  change  is 
pressed  home  and  there  is  need  for  interpretation  and  se- 
rious self-communing.  At  such  a  time,  kindly  —  yet 
uncompromising  and  veracious  —  explanation  of  the 
nature  and  implications  of  the  crisis  is  the  course  dic- 
tated by  wisdom.  Nothing  can  be  more  cruel,  disor- 
ganizing, and,  in  a  way,  insulting  than  the  attempt  to 


2  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

harmonize  what  cannot  in  the  long  run  be  harmonized. 
The  agony  is  then  sure  to  be  long  drawn  out  and  the 
strength  of  soul,  given  by  fearlessness,  is  lost.  I  feel 
that  the  first  law  of  personality  is  spiritual  courage. 
Actions  and  methods  founded  on  a  doubt  of  this  pri- 
mary law  lead  to  a  blunting  of  the  fine  edge  of  the  self, 
an  injury  greater  than  which  can  scarcely  be  conceived. 

In  this  day  of  testing,  when  so  few  have  been  found 
lacking  in  courage  and  the  capacity  for  self-sacrifice, 
it  seems  peculiarly  fitting  that  spiritual  values  and  be- 
liefs be  boldly  thrown  into  the  arena,  there  to  prove 
themselves.  In  the  years  after  the  Great  War,  man- 
kind must  build  its  life  afresh  and  it  wih1  be  wisest  to  see 
that  the  foundation  is  a  sound  one.  And,  as  a  matter 
of  social  psychology,  I  doubt  that  a  people  which  is 
unwilling  to  look  carefully  to  the  framework  of  its 
social  and  spiritual  edifice  can  build  a  noble  mansion. 
Mechanical  efficiency  and  cleverness  will  not  be  enough 
for  this  task  of  spiritual  creation.  We  must  find  last- 
ing values  around  which  to  build  a  humane  life.  And 
this,  also,  is  a  kind  of  warfare.  Some  have  expressed 
to  me  a  doubt  whether  America  is  prepared  for  this 
effort  at  reconstruction  of  a  basic,  yet  intangible,  sort. 
I  have  hopes,  although  not  blind  ones.  I  refuse  to  take 
the  vulgarities  and  ignorances  of  popular  evangelists 
as  completely  diagnostic  of  America's  soul. 

In  the  following  pages,  which  are  devoted  to  a  clear 
statement  of  the  new  view  of  man  and  nature  which, 
in  its  essentials,  has  come  to  stay,  I  shall  act  according 
to  this  law  of  personality,  to  wit,  spiritual  courage. 
I  shall  explain  the  spiritualized  naturalism  to  which  we 
are  ascending  in  the  same  spirit  that  the  scientist  pre- 
sents his  facts  —  impersonally,  calmly,  and  simply. 


SUGGESTIONS  3 

Such,  at  least,  is  my  purpose  and  desire.  What  I  write 
here  is  in  its  way  a  confession  of  faith.  The  values 
and  loyalties  which  I  shall  proclaim  as  true,  redemptive 
and  invigorating  are  those  which  my  own  life  and  con- 
crete reflection  have  selected.  In  them  I  see  the  possi- 
bility of  high  spiritual  attainment. 

The  new  view  of  the  universe  is  founded  upon,  influ- 
enced by,  and  has  for  its  necessary  setting,  the  exact 
knowledge  which  the  various  special  sciences,  mental 
as  well  as  physical,  have  been  accumulating.  This 
knowledge  is  rounding  into  something  of  the  nature  of 
a  whole  whose  interpretation  does  not  admit  of  doubt. 
Incomplete  in  detail  though  his  knowledge  be,  man  is  no 
longer  in  the  dark  as  to  the  main  features  of  the  world 
and  his  own  origin  and  destiny.  He  knows  that  he  is 
an  inhabitant  of  a  small  planet  in  one  of  the  many  solar 
systems  of  the  stellar  universe,  that  he  is  the  product 
of  an  age-long  evolution  in  which  variation  and  sur- 
vival have  been  the  chief  methods  of  advance,  that  his 
mind  as  well  as  his  body  has  its  natural  ancestry. 
While  it  will  always  remain  a  wonder,  so  to  speak,  that 
there  is  a  universe  in  which  and  to  which  we  awaken, 
it  is  equally  certain  that  the  only  sensible  thing  to  do  is 
to  seek  to  find  out  its  character  and  laws.  Is  it  not  like 
exploring  the  chambers  and  corridors  of  a  house  in 
which  one  shall  live  for  a  stated  period? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  man  has  always  been  curious 
about  his  world.  Yet  before  he  hit  upon  the  proper 
methods  of  investigation,  he  could  only  guess  and  dream 
about  it,  under  the  sway  of  hopes  and  fears  which  too 
easily  threw  themselves  like  gigantic  shadows  before 
him.  The  fire  of  his  untrained  intelligence  was  feeble 
and  unpenetrating  and,  so,  distorted  the  world  which  it 


4,  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

dimly  revealed.  The  result  was  what  must  be  called 
the  older  religious  view  of  the  world  —  a  view  which 
saw  personal  and  super-personal  agency  at  the  heart 
of  things.  This  primitive  interpretation  of  the  world  we 
shall  be  led  to  criticize,  but,  in  so  doing,  we  shall  be  the 
servants  of  truth  and  of  a  more  adult  spirituality. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  the  patiently  acquired 
knowledge,  obtained  by  science,  philosophy  and  a  ma- 
tured human  wisdom,  has  been  found  to  conflict  with 
the  first  interpretation  of  the  world.  The  recognition 
of  this  conflict  dates  back  now  some  centuries  —  the 
warfare  between  science  and  religion  also  has  its  his- 
tory —  but  each  generation  has  seen  the  addition  made1 
of  some  new  element  to  the  clash  which  is  leading  man 
to  a  new  view  of  the  world. 

What  is  striking  about  the  present  situation  is  the 
increase  of  the  positive  elements  in  the  outlook  which 
is  forming  in  men's  minds.  In  the  past,  the  tradition- 
alist had  some  justification  in  speaking  of  the  opposed 
ideas  as  largely  negative.  What  positive  doctrine 
there  was  in  the  physical  science  which  theology  had  to 
meet,  to  its  discomfort,  had  only  an  indirect  bearing 
upon  life.  But  the  nineteenth  century  was  the  witness 
of  a  distinct  revolution  in  this  regard.  I  do  not  refer 
merely  to  the  fact  that  the  idea  of  evolution  was  applied 
to  man.  That  was  prophetic  and  strategic  rather  than 
revolutionary.  It  symbolized  the  passage  of  science 
from  the  periphery  to  the  center,  from  the  outlying 
regions  of  the  universe  to  man's  very  self.  All  the 
time,  however,  a  new  perspective  had  been  arising  in 
man's  interests  and  values.  The  possibilities  and  needs 
of  this  life  were  replacing  the  dream  of  another  life  in 


SUGGESTIONS  5 

another  world.  A  busy  concern  with  the  things  of  this 
world  was  everywhere  evident.  Man  was  seeking  to 
master  his  environment. 

During  the  first  stage  of  this  revolution,  the  indus- 
trial and  political  changes  were  the  most  prominent. 
A  change  in  the  instrumentalities  of  life,  physical,  eco- 
nomic and  political,  occupied  men's  thoughts  to  a  larger 
degree  than  ever  before.  But  as  the  nineteenth  century 
circled  to  the  twentieth,  deeper  notes  became  audible. 
Humanitarianism,  constructive  reform,  social  democ- 
racy became  the  watchwords  of  the  day.  I  do  not 
think  that  it  has  yet  been  clearly  realized  how  com- 
pletely these  new  aims  and  interests  fit  in  with  the  re- 
sults of  science  and  yet  pass  beyond  them  to  the  service 
of  human  values.  The  truth  seems  to  be  that,  by  an 
imperceptible  process,  new  values  and  hopes  have  been 
replacing  the  traditional  ones,  and  that  these  values 
and  aims  both  find  themselves  in  harmony  with  the 
new  knowledge  and  rest  upon  it. 

In  spite  of  the  conflict  between  the  rising  view  of 
man  and  nature  and  the  traditional  religious  concep- 
tion, there  is  yet,  I  believe,  a  profound  continuity  in  the 
genuinely  spiritual  achievements  of  humanity.  It  is  a 
pity  to  be  so  ridden  by  the  new  that  the  noble  in  the  old 
is  forgotten.  Tenderness  and  love,  however  obscured 
at  times  by  formalism  and  bigotry,  owe  much  to  their 
nurture  by  Christianity.  Hence,  the  deeper  and  truer 
interpretation  of  all  past  movements  regards  them  as 
varying  expressions  of  humanity's  growth  in  social  and 
mental  stature.  There  is,  in  other  words,  no  real  dis- 
continuity in  human  history.  The  only  difference  is, 
that  the  dynamic  of  social  conditions  and  intellectual 
heritage  has  varied. 


6  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

But  this  acknowledged  continuity  does  not  preclude 
that  presence  of  genuine  and  effective  newness  which  is 
revolutionary  in  its  effects.  The  perspective,  inten- 
tion, and  elements  of  religion  are  about  to  alter.  In 
the  following  pages,  I  shall  argue  that  the  attachments  of 
past  religion  were  determined  by  a  mythological,  and  es- 
sentially magical,  idea  of  man's  environment.  Such  at- 
titudes and  expectations  as  prayer,  ritual,  worship, 
immortality,  providence,  are  expressions  of  the  pre- 
scientific  view  of  the  world.  But  as  man  partly  out- 
grows, partly  learns  to  reject,  the  primitive  thought  of 
the  world,  this  perspective  and  these  elements  will  drop 
from  religion.  That  this  alteration  has,  in  surprisingly 
large  measure,  already  taken  place  can  be  seen  from  the 
following  excerpts  from  the  writings  of  the  best  known 
American  authority  on  Church  History :  "  Traditional 
Christian  ideas,  in  fact,  are  undergoing  extensive  trans- 
formation as  a  result  of  the  new  social  emphasis.  The 
individualism  of  evangelicalism,  with  its  primary  con- 
cern for  the  salvation  of  the  individual  soul,  is  widely 
discredited.  The  old  ascetic  ideal  is  everywhere  giving 
way  to  the  social.  Instead  of  holding  themselves  aloof 
from  the  world  Christians  are  throwing  themselves  into 
ft  and  striving  to  reform  it.  Holiness  in  the  tradi- 
tional sense  of  abstinence  from  sin  is  less  highly  valued 
than  it  was.  The  test  of  virtue  is  more  and  more  com- 
ing to  be  the  social  test.  The  virtuous  man  is  he  who 
makes  his  influence  tell  for  the  improvement  of  society. 
Personal  probity  and  uprightness,  dissociated  from  the 
active  service  of  one's  fellows,  is  frequently  regarded 
to-day  as  '  mere  morality  *  was  by  the  Evangelicals. 
As  virtue  had  value  to  them  only  in  union  with  and 
subordination  to  piety,  so  without  the  spirit  of  service 


SUGGESTIONS  7 

personal  morality  seems  to  many  a  modern  social  re- 
former a  mere  empty  husk."  l  Obviously,  the  center 
of  religious  gravity  has  altered  tremendously  from 
what  it  was  in  the  Victorian  Age.  We  are  on  the  brink 
of  a  new  period,  the  period  of  a  realistic,  and  yet  spir- 
itual, social  democracy. 

"  But,"  I  will  be  asked,  "  do  you  advocate  a  religion 
of  humanity?  That  is  an  old  effort  weighed  in  the 
balance  and  found  wanting."  Comte's  reform  was,  in  a 
way,  premature.  Society  had  not  developed  enough  to 
give  his  effort  a  concrete  basis.  But,  more  than  this,  his 
mistake  was  that  he  did  not  see  that  the  elements  of 
religion,  as  well  as  its  perspective,  must  be  altered. 
Humanity  is  not  an  object  to  be  worshiped.  The  very 
attitude  and  implications  of  worship  must  be  relin- 
quished. In  their  place  must  be  put  the  spiritually 
founded  virtue  of  loyalty  to  those  efforts  and  values 
which  elevate  human  beings  and  give  a  quality  of  nobil- 
ity and  significance  to  our  human  life  here  and  now. 

The  positive  note  of  the  present  work  can  now  be 
given  in  a  few  words :  Religion  is  loyalty  to  the  values 
of  life.  The  idea  of  the  spiritual  must  be  broadened 
and  humanized  to  include  all  those  purposes,  experi- 
ences and  activities  which  express  man's  nature.  The 
spiritual  must  be  seen  to  be  the  fine  flower  of  living, 
which  requires  no  other  sanctions  than  its  own  inherent 
worth  and  appeal.  We  must  outgrow  the  false  notion 
that  religion  is  inseparable  from  supernatural  objects, 
and  that  the  spiritual  is  something  alien  to  man  which 
must  be  forced  upon  him  from  the  outside.  The  spir- 
itual is  man  at  his  best,  man  loving,  daring,  creating, 

i  McGiffert,  The  Rise  of  Modern  Religious  Ideas,  p.  272. 


8  THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

fighting  loyally  and  courageously  for  causes  dear  to 
him.  Religion  must  be  concrete  instead  of  formal,  and 
catholic  in  its  count  of  values.  Wherever  there  is 
loyal  endeavor,  the  presence  of  the  spiritual  must  freely 
be  acknowledged.  It  would  seem  to  follow  that  reli- 
gion will  have  objects  only  in  the  sense  of  purposes  to 
fulfill.  It  will  no  longer  have  need  of  a  special  view 
of  the  world. 

The  religion  of  the  past  has  had  much  to  say  about 
salvation.  Salvation  was  only  too  often  something 
which  happened  to  a  man  from  outside.  It  was  some- 
thing capricious  and  uncontrollable  like  sudden  for- 
tune. Let  us  see  what  the  religion  of  the  present  with 
its  more  realistic  conception  of  life  has  to  say  about 
salvation.  I  have  written  in  the  book  as  follows : 
"  Only  that  soul  is  saved  which  is  worth  saving?  and  the 
being  worth  saving  is  its  salvation.  Salvation  is  no 
magical  hocus-pocus  external  to  the  reach  and  timbre 
of  a  man;  it  is  the  loyal  union  of  a  man  with  those 
values  of  life  which  have  come  within  his  ken."  What- 
ever mixture  of  magic,  fear,  ritual,  and  adoration  reli- 
gion may  have  been  in  man's  early  days  upon  this 
earth,  it  is  now  increasingly,  and  henceforth  must  be, 
that  which  concerns  his  contact  with  the  duties  and 
possibilities  of  life.  Such  salvation  is  an  achievement 
which  has  personal  and  social  conditions.  It  is  not  a 
label  nor  a  lucky  number  for  admission  into  another 
world,  but  something  bought  and  paid  for  by  effort. 
It  is  like  character  and  education,  for  these  are  but 
special  instances  of  it. 

The  personal  conditions  of  spiritual  life  are  sanity, 
health,  and  a  capacity  to  be  fired  by  consuming  pur- 
poses. No  one  can  be  greatly  saved  who  has  not  a 


SUGGESTIONS  9 

soul  capable  of  being  touched  in  some  measure  by  what 
is  sterling  and  significant.  But  one  of  the  discoveries 
of  democracy  is  the  wide  distribution  of  this  sensitive- 
ness. The  spiritual  is  not  something  painful,  but  it  is 
something  which  concerns  the  quality  of  human  life. 

The  social  conditions  of  salvation  are  just  as  neces- 
sary. They  are  the  presence  of  institutions  and  ar- 
rangements which  give  opportunity  to  the  individual 
to  develop  himself.  The  individual  must  have  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  leisure  and  a  chance  for  a  vital  educa- 
tion. He  should  have  some  contact  with  beautiful 
things  and  the  stimulus  of  association  with  great  causes. 
A  healthy  and  sane  society  makes  possible  healthy  and 
sane  individuals.  It  is  especially  desirable  that  society 
put  its  emphasis  on  the  right  things.  If  it  is  permissi- 
ble to  speak  of  society's  salvation,  we  would  say  that  it 
consists  in  the  wise  relation  of  means  to  ends,  the  sub- 
ordination of  the  economic  side  of  life  to  the  moral, 
intellectual  and  artistic  activities.  A  society  which 
does  not  order  itself  in  this  way  is  called  materialistic ; 
and  such  a  society  is  certain  to  contain  numberless  in- 
dividuals who  live  at  a  far  lower  spiritual  level  than  they 
should.  It  is  the  very  nature  of  religion  to  condemn 
this  falling  short  of  loyalty  to  the  finer  values  of  life. 

We  have  said  that  religion  must  be  catholic  in  its 
count  of  values.  Moral  souls  may  still  be  compara- 
tively starved  souls.  One  of  the  great  mistakes  religion 
has  made  in  the  past  has  been  this  very  lack  of  sym- 
pathy for  values  of  all  kinds.  For  this  very  reason, 
religion  has  often  displayed  a  certain  narrowness  and 
harshness.  Its  loyalty  has  frequently  been  a  one-sided 
loyalty  which  prided  itself  on  its  asceticism.  But  the 
day  of  an  irrational  asceticism  has  passed.  Intensity 


10          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

is  good,  but  intensity  and  breadth  are  better  still.  A 
humane  religion  will  preach  loyalty  to  many  values, 
harmonized  together  by  the  work  of  a  concrete  reason 
and  a  living  art.  When  religion  did  not  consider  itself 
of  this  world,  it  was  passive  and  acquiescent  toward 
many  features  of  human  life.  But  a  truer  idea  of  the 
nature  of  the  spiritual,  united  with  a  decay  of  the  old 
supernaturalistic  sanctions,  will  change  all  that.  Re- 
ligion will  become  active  and  militant,  intensely  con- 
cerned with  everything  human,  a  loyal  enthusiasm  for 
all  the  significant  phases  of  life.  It  will  cease  to  be  a 
matter  of  taboos,  of  ritual,  of  rather  conventional 
routine  and  become  a  spirit  of  vigorous  search  for 
whatever  elevates  and  ennobles  human  beings  in  their 
day  of  life.  Into  the  service  of  such  a  religion  reason 
and  art  will  gladly  enter. 

But  this  interpretation  of  religion  has  its  obverse 
side.  It  is  in  part  directed  against  the  age-old,  super- 
naturalistic  perspective  which  has  done  so  much  to 
render  religion  a  hindrance  to  the  growth  of  spiritual- 
ity. The  growth  of  my  own  thinking  has  led  me  to  see, 
ever  more  clearly,  the  harm  done  in  this  day  and  age 
by  that  emphasis  on  sanctions  for  conduct  which  are 
not  justified  by  the  vital  and  concrete  needs  of  human 
life.  The  appeal  to  tradition  and  authority  ab- 
stracted religion  from  that  fresh  contact  with  the 
movement  of  events  which  makes  the  great  causes  of 
history  so  vivid  and  appealing.  This  abstraction  di- 
vided the  spiritual  life  of  man  against  itself  and  led  to 
inefficiency  and  confusion.  What  the  world  needs  to- 
day is  a  rational  enthusiasm  for  human  values.  The 
thought  of  another  world  with  its  melodramatic  last 
judgment  encouraged  individualism,  withdrew  atten- 


SUGGESTIONS  11 

tion  from  social  problems  and  aspirations,  made  the 
conception  of  the  spiritual  anaemic  and  vague.  The 
official  spirituality  of  the  Church  lacked  the  happy 
stimulus  of  a  social  setting. 

Bad  as  this  division  of  man's  spiritual  life  against 
itself  was,  it  was  not  all.  Man  had  been  taught  to 
despise  reason,  almost  his  highest  quality.  The  con- 
sequence was,  that  reason  passed  into  the  service  of 
the  mere  technical  arrangements  of  life.  Man  ration- 
alized nature  and  left  himself  irrational,  as  can  be  seen 
in  the  Great  War.  Because  religion  ignored  reason 
and  slighted  many  sides  of  man's  nature,  it  paid  the 
penalty  of  abortiveness.  It  is  not  a  mere  accident  that 
Christianity  has  been  so  helpless  in  the  present  crisis. 

In  times  of  darkness,  it  is  natural  for  the  individual 
to  seek  ways  of  escape  from  the  crushing  load  which 
has  fallen  upon  him.  The  student  of  the  history  of 
religion  knows  that  the  most  popular  way  of  escape 
has  been  in  terms  of  spiritualism  and  supernaturalism. 
But  the  thinker  knows  that  this  is  a  search  for  a  seda- 
tive rather  than  a  remedy.  Moreover,  the  growth  of 
human  knowledge  has  made  such  a  refuge  more  strained 
and  artificial  than  it  used  to  be.  Those  few  men  of 
standing  in  the  physical  sciences  who  have  lent  the 
prestige  of  their  name  to  fields  in  which  they  have  little 
competence  have  done  a  grave  disservice  to  mankind. 
Man  must  conquer  his  problems ;  he  cannot  find  salva- 
tion in  a  cowardly  flight  from  them.  The  teaching  of 
this  book  is  that  supernaturalism  has  prevented  man 
from  finding  himself,  and  that  the  spiritual  task  of  the 
present  generation  is  a  re-interpretation  of  the  spir- 
itual to  take  in  all  the  significant  features  of  human 
life.  We  want  a  religion  of  present  use,  a  religion 


12          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

not  concerned  with  mythological  objects  and  hypo- 
thetical states  of  existence  but  with  the  tasks  and  needs 
of  human  beings  in  society.  Will  not  the  next  step  in 
religion  be  the  relinquishment  of  the  supernatural  and 
the  active  appreciation  of  virtues  and  values?  It  is  my 
hope  that  the  present  sincere  discussion  will  assist,  in 
some  small  measure,  the  coming  of  such  a  religion. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  AGE  OF  MYTH 

WE  must,  perforce,  admit  that  our  ancestors  awoke  to 
consciousness  of  themselves  and  their  surroundings  at 
a  time  when  they  knew  practically  nothing,  as  we  un- 
derstand knowledge.  Theirs  was  a  world  of  sights  and 
sounds,  a  world  of  woods  and  streams,  of  moving 
things,  of  growing  things,  of  things  to  be  eaten,  of 
things  good  and  evil.  It  was  a  driving,  fearful,  fas- 
cinating world.  Unconsciously  and  inevitably,  man 
interpreted  his  surroundings  in  terms  of  his  own  eager, 
childish  life.  Force  and  desire  peeped  from  every  cor- 
ner. 

The  sky  was  not  very  high  above  him  for  it  seemed  to 
touch  the  mountain  tops ;  and  yet  he  could  never  hope 
to  climb  there.  But  he  could  see  very  well  that  it  was 
inhabited.  And  was  it  not  a  wonderful  place,  since  the 
heat  and  light  of  the  sun  and  the  warm,  fructifying 
rain  came  from  it?  And  what  were  the  clouds  that 
floated  across  it  like  huge  birds  or  strange,  gigantic 
creatures?  Even  the  lush  grass  of  the  spring-time 
seemed  full  of  a  hidden  life.  Everywhere  was  force  and 
will  —  the  power  for  good  and  harm. 

Perhaps  only  an  imaginative  child,  or  an  adult  with 
something  of  the  poet's  gift,  can  appreciate  vividly  the 
type  of  world  in  which  these  early  men  found  them- 
selves. The  city-dweller  of  to-day  lives  in  a  subdued 

13 


1*          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

and  mechanically  controlled  region  whose  every  clank 
and  rattle  speaks  of  routine  and  order.  The  myth- 
making  faculty  of  the  street-urchin  has  little  to  feed 
upon  —  all  is  so  obvious  and  open  to  inspection.  The 
ordinary  lad,  again,  is  so  soon  filled  with  the  conven- 
tionalized views  of  his  elders  that  the  hand  of  fancy 
soon  ceases  to  write  upon  his  soul  or  give  a  touch  of 
wonder  to  familiar  things.  There  can  be  no  doubt, 
therefore,  that  a  conscious  effort  is  required  before  a 
man  of  to-day  can  give  even  a  fleeting  glimpse  at  the 
capricious,  magical,  animated,  and  intensely  personal 
world  of  his  distant  ancestors.  And  yet  the  guesses 
and  surmises  of  these  earlier  men  were  the  source  of 
more  of  his  beliefs  than  he  would  care  to  admit.  In 
these  pages  we  shall  see  how  much  of  mythology  still 
lingers  with  us. 

Mythology  is  a  product  of  the  social  group,  of  clans 
and  tribes  and  peoples,  and  is  of  slow  growth.  Story 
added  itself  to  story,  this  feature  to  that.  Hence  it 
was  often  a  work  of  art,  though  of  unconscious  art. 
It  was  an  expression  of  the  life  of  groups  who  had  gods 
and  totems.  It  was  inextricably  bound  up  with  the 
whole  savage  outlook  upon  nature;  and  yet  only  re- 
cently has  this  setting  been  adequately  appreciated. 
Until  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  knowledge 
of  mythology  was  practically  limited  to  the  poetized 
mythology  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans.  And  so,  be- 
cause it  was  found  in  the  poets,  it  was  thought  of  as 
an  artificial  product,  as  a  series  of  stories  invented 
and  embroidered  by  the  fancy  of  bards  and  narrators. 

But  the  wider  knowledge  due  to  exploration  changed 
this  narrow  approach.  The  discoveries  of  travelers  in 
the  Americas,  Africa,  and  Oceania  gave  pause  to  this  too 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  15 

civilized  and  superficial  theory  of  myth.  Gradually,  a 
more  realistic  view  arose.  The  idea  of  evolution  gave 
a  genetic  way  of  approach  and  made  investigators 
aware  of  the  slowness  of  human  advance.  The  next 
steps  followed  quickly.  Social  psychology  replaced 
the  individualistic  and  overly  rationalistic  psychology 
of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  All  the  phenomena  of 
primitive  society  were  seen  to  be  the  products  of  rela- 
tively non-reflective  groups  who  felt  and  stumbled  their 
way  into  rituals  and  beliefs.  As  the  material  accumu- 
lated, comparative  methods  were  applied  in  the  field. 
The  result  has  been  astounding.  In  place  of  the  ro- 
mantic conception  of  primitive  life,  which  made  the  sav- 
age essentially  a  civilized  child,  a  grimmer  picture  un- 
folded itself.  Fetichism,  shamanism,  magic,  human 
sacrifice,  totemism,  ritualism,  all  were  found  combined 
and  interactive  in  a  scheme  of  life  alien  to  our  own  en- 
lightened outlook.  In  such  an  atmosphere  it  was  that 
mythology  arose.  It  arose  as  an  account  of  acts  and 
beliefs,  and,  as  these  were  purified  and  deepened,  it,  also, 
advanced  in  purity  and  depth.  Yet,  always,  there  re- 
mained the  trace  of  the  savagery  from  which  it  had 
sprung. 

While  primitive  religion  and  mythology  are  not  iden- 
tical, they  are  closely  bound  up  with  one  another.  Both 
rest  upon  animism,  totemism  and  magic  as  these  are 
brought  into  relation  with  man's  needs  and  fears.  Re- 
ligion is  chiefly  an  affair  of  sentiment  and  cult,  actively 
guided  by  belief  in  superhuman  powers  capable  of  help- 
ing and  hurting  man.  Mythology,  on  the  other  hand, 
consists  of  the  stories  told  about  these  dynamic  powers 
as  they  are  more  and  more  personified  and  given  a 
history  and  a  name.  And  such  stories  are  naturally 


16          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

built  up  around  acts  whose  significance  has  been  for- 
gotten, or  around  dramatized  interpretations  of  proc- 
esses in  nature.  Myths  are  explanations  of  acts  and 
events  and  names  which  aroused  curiosity  and  there- 
fore demanded  some  explanation.  It  was  only  after 
modern  anthropology  had  unearthed  the  characteristic 
beliefs  of  primitive  man  that  many  myths  became  in- 
telligible. A  few  examples  will  make  this  relationship 
clearer. 

Totemism  is  a  sort  of  cult  rendered  to  animals  and 
plants  which  are  regarded  as  akin  to  the  tribe.  It 
must  be  remembered  that  primitive  man  was  not  nearly 
so  convinced  of  his  superiority  as  is  modern  man. 
Wolves  and  bears  and  foxes  are  strong  and  cunning, 
and  seem  to  him  to  have  a  power  and  knowledge  even 
superior  to  his  own.  Strange  as  it  appears  to  us  to- 
day, savages  quite  often  assign  their  origin  to  some 
animal  and  regard  that  animal  as  the  possessor  of  a 
force  which  is  valuable  to  his  kin.  This  cult  of  totem- 
istic  animals  and  plants  is  at  the  base  of  the  tales  of 
metamorphosis  which  we  read  in  Classic  literature  or  in 
our  own  fairy  tales.  "  Beauty  and  the  Beast "  is  an 
example  of  this  transformation,  which  our  ancestors 
looked  upon  as  quite  natural;  while  the  savage  tales  of 
the  werewolf  go  back  to  the  same  outlook.  The  ser- 
pent in  the  Garden  of  Eden  is  another  instance  of  the 
same  cycle  of  ideas.  The  application  of  our  present 
knowledge  of  totemism  to  mythology  has  been  very  en- 
lightening. Students  of  Greek  literature  used  to  won- 
der why  all  the  gods  had  birds  and  animals  as  compan- 
ions. As  a  matter  of  fact,  these  animals  were  once 
sacred  totems.  The  eagle  and  the  swan  were  gradually 
displaced  by  Zeus,  the  sky  deity.  But  so  gradual  was 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  17 

this  displacement  that  the  animals  became  attributes  of 
the  younger  deity,  while  he  was  thought  to  change  him- 
self at  times  back  into  the  totem  animal.  The  story  of 
Leda  and  the  swan  can,  in  this  way,  be  easily  understood. 

Many  myths  are  explanations  of  rites  which  were  no 
longer  understood.  Such  myths  are  called  aetiological. 
They  are  answers  to  questions  which  worshipers  were 
bound,  sooner  or  later,  to  ask.  The  myth  of  Prome- 
theus, the  Titan  who  stole  the  fire  from  heaven  to  suc- 
cor men,  was  connected  with  the  use  of  eagles  on  the 
front  of  temples  to  ward  off  lightning.  Originally,  the 
story  concerns  the  punishment  of  the  eagle,  but  is  later 
attached  to  Prometheus.  It  is,  according  to  Reinach, 
the  development  of  the  following  nai've  dialogue: 
"  Why  is  this  eagle  crucified  ?  It  is  its  punishment  for 
having  stolen  the  fire  from  heaven."  Other  examples 
of  astiological  myths  are  the  Phaethon  legend,  the 
story  of  Hippolyte,  and  some  of  the  stories  told  about 
Heracles. 

Another  source  of  myth  is  to  be  found  in  the  sacrifice 
of  animal-gods  who  are  supposed  to  possess  a  secret 
strength.  Such  animal-gods  are  not  anthropomor- 
phized in  early  times.  They  are  simply  regarded  as 
seats  of  vital  power  or  mana.  We  must  bear  in  mind 
the  fact  that  savage  man  would  not  have  been  shocked 
by  Darwinism  as  Bishop  Wilberforce  was.  No  distinc- 
tion worth  mentioning  was  made  between  men  and  ani- 
mals in  those  ancient  days.  "  English-lore,"  writes 
Andrew  Lang,  "  has  its  woman  who  bore  rabbits." 
The  religions  of  Greece  and  of  Asia  Minor  had  rites 
and  myths  which  introduced  the  sacred  bull.  In  Mi- 
thraism,  a  religion  which  almost  won  against  Christian- 
ity, the  sacrifice  of  the  bull  and  the  consumption  of  its 


18          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

blood  and  flesh  in  a  communion  feast  were  prominent 
features.  Again,  in  the  rites  of  Dionysus  Zagreus,  a 
bull  was  torn  to  pieces  and  eaten.  From  this  arose  the 
myth  of  Dionysus  Zagreus  as  a  son  of  Zeus  and  Per- 
sephone changed  into  a  bull  and  eaten  by  the  Titans. 
He  is  born  again  under  the  name  of  Dionysus,  yet  car- 
ries horns  on  his  forehead,  evident  signs  of  his  animal 
origin.  Thus  different  strata  of  religion  and  belief 
meet  and  blend  and  necessitate  the  growth  of  explana- 
tory myths. 

But  we  must  not  allow  the  newer  recognition  of  the 
part  played  by  misinterpretation  in  the  development 
of  myths  to  obscure  the  genuine  role  of  nai've  reflection 
upon  the  phenomena  of  nature.  Yet  the  savage  imag- 
ination was  limited  by  the  experience  at  its  command. 
The  Homeric  hymn  to  Helios  "  looks  on  the  sun  as  a 
half-god,  almost  a  hero,  who  had  once  lived  on  earth." 
Still  more  nai've  are  legends  which  make  it  a  beast 
which  has  once  been  trapped.  Myths  arise  to  account 
for  eclipses,  the  waxing  and  waning  of  the  moon,  sun- 
set, etc.  The  explanation  of  the  rainbow  as  a  sign  of 
a  covenant  between  Yahweh  and  Noah  is  an  excellent 
example  of  a  nature-myth  introduced  as  a  part  of  a 
legend. 

There  are  many  other  sources  of  myths.  Around  all 
striking  events,  such  as  the  first  punishment  of  homi- 
cide, legends  arise.  Bellerophon  and  Ixion  are  com- 
pelled to  flee  into  exile.  Again,  the  facts  and  ritual 
of  death  are  a  fruitful  center  for  the  working  of  the 
imagination.  The  sheol  of  the  Hebrews  is  first  the 
grave ;  and  only  later  does  it  become  even  the  shadowy 
underworld  which  is  pictured  in  Isaiah. 

But   our  purpose  is  not  to  present  an  exhaustive 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  19 

analysis  of  the  types  of  myth  which  early  man  wove 
about  the  world  in  which  he  found  himself.  What  it  is 
important  to  grasp  is  the  slow  growth  from  an  almost 
animal  state  of  ignorance  to  a  more  enlightened,  moral, 
and  socially  ordered  life.  This  evolution  took  time, 
and  such  progress  as  was  made  was  always  in  danger  of 
being  overthrown  by  the  hardening  of  myth  and  cult 
into  a  strait-jacket  of  superstition  and  hysterical  fear. 
This  danger  was  always  great  just  because  reason  could 
secure  no  firm  foothold  upon  reality.  Man's  life  was 
one  of  constant  fear.  He  felt  himself  assailed  by  evil 
spirits  and  surrounded  by  taboos  and  laws,  to  violate 
which  meant  disaster.  When  we  glance  over  history, 
we  find  only  two  things  which  have  shown  promise  of 
power  to  raise  man  out  of  this  slough  of  fear, —  ethical 
monotheism  and  reason.  How  far  is  this  a  genuine  an- 
tithesis? May  it  not  be  that  the  real  strength  and 
freeing  power  of  ethical  monotheism  is  due  to  the  reason 
which  created  it  and  speaks  through  it? 

Upon  one  set  of  myths  of  extreme  importance  for 
religion  we  have,  however,  scarcely  touched.  Yet  the 
study  of  this  group  and  its  explanation  has  been  a  sig- 
nal triumph  for  the  science  of  comparative  religion.  It 
is  a  great  pity  that  the  general  public  knows,  as  yet, 
so  little  about  the  researches  made  by  scholars  into  the 
wide-spread  ritual  of  communion  and  purification,  by 
means  of  which  the  participant  becomes  one  with  his 
deity  and  is  even  assured  of  salvation  and  immortality. 
The  interesting  fact  is,  that,  here  again,  we  find  ideas 
which  are  essentially  primitive  and  magical  given  a  new 
setting.  What  was  once  social,  and  largely  a  ritual 
concerned  with  the  re-birth  of  vegetation  in  the  Spring, 
becomes  personal,  and  a  symbol  of  the  resurrection  of  a 


20          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

believer  in  another  world.  In  its  first  form  and  motiva- 
tion, this  set  of  ideas  turns  around  the  tribe's  material 
needs.  Only  with  the  growth  of  self-consciousness  is  it 
applied  to  the  individual. 

Why  did  this  type  of  ritual  arise?  And  why  was  it 
celebrated  with  such  fervor?  These  questions  lead  us 
into  the  very  heart  of  early  religion.  Religion  was  the 
expression  of  man's  very  real  need,  in  the  light  of  his 
view  of  the  world  as  the  seat  of  spiritual  agencies. 
"  The  extraordinary  security  of  our  modern  life  in 
times  of  peace  makes  it  hard  for  us  to  realize,  except 
by  a  definite  effort  of  the  imagination,  the  constant 
precariousness,  the  frightful  proximity  of  death,  that 
was  usual  in  these  weak  ancient  communities.  They 
were  in  fear  of  wild  beasts ;  they  were  helpless  against 
floods,  helpless  against  pestilences.  Their  food  de- 
pended on  the  crops  of  one  tiny  plot  of  ground;  and 
if  the  Savior  was  not  reborn  with  the  spring,  they 
slowly  and  miserably  died.  And  all  the  while  they  knew 
almost  nothing  of  the  real  causes  that  made  crops  suc- 
ceed or  fail.  They  only  felt  sure  it  was  somehow  a 
matter  of  pollution,  of  unexpiated  defilement.  It  is  this 
state  of  things  that  explains  the  curious  cruelty  of  early 
agricultural  works,  the  human  sacrifices,  the  scape- 
goats, the  tearing  in  pieces  of  living  animals,  and  per- 
haps of  living  men,  the  steeping  of  the  fields  in  blood." 
To  men  at  this  stage,  religion  is  the  most  natural  of 
attitudes.  It  is  the  child  of  animism,  of  magic,  of 
ignorance  and  of  need.  But  to  explain  the  origin  of 
an  attitude  is  not  to  explain  it  away.  May  it  not  be 
that  these  sentiments  can  be  given  another  setting  and 
other  objects? 

While   all   races   have   passed   through   this   myth- 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  21 

making  stage,  certain  races  have  been  more  gifted,  or 
else  more  favored  by  the  circumstances  of  their  devel- 
opment. A  vivid  imagination,  a  relatively  complex  so- 
ciety with  different  traditions,  a  diversified  landscape, 
an  inviting  climate,  and  a  leisurely,  yet  vigorous  life 
were  necessary  to  the  highest  efflorescence  of  this  poetic 
power  to  weave  human  motives  into  nature  and  into 
the  conduct  of  supernatural  powers  conceived  after  the 
manner  of  men.  These  conditions  were  fulfilled  to  a 
remarkable  degree  among  the  Greeks,  whose  mythology 
constantly  surprises  us  by  its  richness,  variety  and  deli- 
cacy. As  the  years  rolled  by,  every  striking  aspect  of 
nature  or  of  traditional  ritual  was  interpreted  in  terms 
of  the  passion,  plan  or  caprice  of  some  being,  different 
from,  yet  by  no  means  alien  to,  man.  The  daring  and 
beauty  of  the  legends  woven  by  this  race  and  the  im- 
mensity of  their  range  have  made  them  the  admiration 
and  wonder  of  other  times  more  given  to  reflection  than 
to  phantasy.  The  childhood  of  the  race  was  productive 
in  a  memorable  fashion  which  has  made  art  and  litera- 
ture forever  its  debtors. 

In  our  admiration  for  Greek  mythology,  we  must  not 
forget  that  other  races  and  nations  wove  stories  to 
account  for  human  life  and  to  interpret  those  features 
of  nature  which  aroused  their  fear,  love  or  wonder. 
Our  own  Northern  mythology  had  its  beauties  and  wild 
reaches  of  imagination  which  made  it,  in  certain  regards, 
a  fit  rival  of  that  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  story  of 
Balder,  the  joyous  and  kindly  god  whom  all  things 
loved,  is  evidently  the  mythical  form  of  the  passing  of 
summer  sunshine  and  the  coming  of  winter  with  its 
darkness  and  gloom.  We  must  always  remember  that 
our  remote  ancestors  interpreted  their  world  concretely, 


22          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

and  mainly  in  terms  of  human  life,  because  they  had 
no  abstract  ideas  at  their  command.  Psychical  and 
physical  concepts  were  interfused  in  their  minds :  prose 
and  poetry,  fact  and  figure  combined  together  without 
that  feeling  of  disharmony  which  is  so  distinctive  of  the 
modern  mind.  Nature  welcomed  personification,  and 
to  read  the  conflict  of  light  and  darkness,  warmth  and 
cold,  in  terms  of  human  struggles  and  hates  was  the 
inevitable  course  for  human  thought  to  take.  The  sim- 
ple grandeur  of  many  of  these  tales  of  the  gods  comes 
from  the  poignancy  of  life  itself.  Those  events  in 
nature  which  affected  man  intensely  received  an  intense 
meaning.  We,  who  have  conquered  nature  in  large 
measure,  or  can  so  predict  her  convulsions  as  to  escape 
the  first  shock  of  her  rude  forces ;  we,  who  think  of  her 
processes  as  ruled  by  impersonal  laws,  cannot  appreci- 
ate the  directness  and  unveiled  immediacy  of  those  an- 
cient dramas  which  man  saw  around  him.  Darkness  is 
for  us  the  absence  of  light,  not  a  mysterious  and  threat- 
ening presence  which  fills  the  sky  while  the  kindly  god 
of  day  sleeps.  Light  consists  of  vibrations  in  ether 
emitted  from  a  tremendously  hot,  material  substance 
instead  of  being  a  beneficent  force  under  the  control  of 
a  radiant  being. 

But  other  races  than  the  Aryan  were  less  inclined 
to  embellish  and  humanize  nature.  The  imagination 
worked  less  freely  to  add  to  the  visible  aspect  of  things. 
The  consequence  of  this  thinness  of  reaction  was,  that 
the  mind  rested  in  things  as  they  appeared,  although  it 
could  not  desist  from  assigning  to  them  capacities  and 
powers  which  were  superhuman.  Nature  was  at  least 
instinct  with  will,  even  while  this  vaguely  stirring  will 
did  not  clothe  itself  in  definite  forms.  Man  believed 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  23 

himself  surrounded  by  forces  which  affected  him  for 
good  and  evil;  he  felt  himself  immersed  in  an  ocean  of 
life,  yet  he  could  not  discern  any  forms  back  of  that 
which  he  saw  with  his  bodily  eyes.  Perhaps  these  other 
races  had  less  of  the  dramatic  in  their  composition,  less 
of  that  genial  delight  in  far-fetched  analogies  and  the 
free  play  of  ideas. 

As  time  passed,  the  first  stage  of  mythology  with  its 
simple  naturalism  and  its  relative  lack  of  imaginative 
elements  gave  way  to  a  more  human  stage.  Myths  of 
the  next  world  came  to  the  front,  and  man  became  more 
and  more  concerned  with  his  salvation  in  an  after- 
life. Comparative  religion  has  proven  how  wide- 
spread was  the  belief  in  some  sort  of  immortality. 
The  Orphic  cults  in  Greece,  the  Osiris  and  Isis  cult 
in  Egypt,  the  worship  of  Attis  and  Adonis  in  Sy- 
ria, the  purification  and  communion  ceremonies  of 
Mithraism,  all  turned  about  the  idea  of  a  secret 
means  of  salvation.  A  common  set  of  ideas  devel- 
oped in  the  Mediterranean  basin  and  found  expres- 
sion in  liturgies  and  phrases  of  a  striking  similarity. 
The  god  dies  and  is  resurrected;  the  virgin  goddess 
gives  birth  to  a  son;  the  members  of  a  religious  com- 
munity eat  of  their  god  and  gain  strength  from  the 
sacred  meal.  The  Church  Fathers  were  aware  of  these 
similarities  and  sought  to  explain  away  their  resem- 
blances with  the  Christian  ritual  by  means  of  the  theory 
that  the  Devil  had  blasphemously  imitated  Christian 
rites  and  doctrines.  Research  has  shown  that  this 
theory  of  parody  is  entirely  unhistorical.  The  fact  is, 
that  Christianity  borrowed  its  ritual  from  the  cults 
among  which  it  grew  up.  For  instance,  the  belief  in 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  a  savior-god  was  very 


24,          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

prevalent  in  Tarsus,  Paul's  own  city.  The  Attis  mys- 
teries were  celebrated  at  a  season  which  corresponded 
to  the  end  of  our  Lenten  period  and  the  beginning  of 
Easter.  They  were  preceded  by  fasting  and  began 
with  lamentations,  "  the  votaries  gathering  in  sorrow 
around  the  bier  of  the  dead  divinity ;  then  followed  the 
resurrection,  and  the  risen  god  gave  hope  of  salvation 
to  the  mystic  brotherhood,  and  the  whole  service  closed 
with  the  feast  of  rejoicing,  the  Hilaria."  There  can 
be  little  doubt  that  this  whole  cycle  of  ideas  represents 
a  development  of  the  primitive  ritual  of  eating  the 
sacred  animal  or  plant  in  spring  in  order  to  foster  the 
re-birth  of  man's  necessities.  From  this  germ  sprang 
reflective  ideas  of  atonement  and  communion  and  im- 
mortality. 

Along  with  the  growth  of  the  mysteries  went  the  in- 
troduction of  more  ethical  standards  of  conduct.  Rit- 
ual purity  suggested  the  idea  of  spiritual  purity.  This 
ethicizing  of  myth  is  very  apparent  in  Greece.  By  the 
time  of  the  dramatists,  moral  judgments  had  become 
more  severe,  and  the  gods  were  looked  upon  as  guardi- 
ans of  the  moral  law;  and  yet  this  view  was  tragically 
thwarted  by  much  of  the  old  tradition.  The  savage 
inheritance  and  the  later  moral  idealism  found  them- 
selves in  conflict.  The  consequence  was  the  gradual 
weakening  of  the  older  myths  and  the  welcoming  of  new 
cults. 

Ethical  growth  is  usually  in  large  measure  uncon- 
scious. Man  reads  ideas  into  the  world  around  him  be- 
fore he  becomes  conscious  that  they  are  his  own.  His 
own  development  is  thus  reflected  in  the  pantheon  with 
which  he  has  peopled  nature.  Zeus  is  at  first  the  thun- 
derer  and  the  cloud-gatherer;  finally  he  represents  jus- 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  25 

tice  and  those  kingly  qualities  which  social  growth 
stresses.  Poets  and  philosophers  refine  away  the 
grosser  myths  which  shock  the  taste  of  a  more  ad- 
vanced social  level.  When  we  compare  the  conceptions 
of  Euripides,  of  Plato,  of  Cleanthes,  of  Marcus  Au- 
relius,  with  the  conduct  of  the  Homeric  gods,  we  realize 
the  distance  traveled  by  the  mind  of  man  along  ethical 
lines.  Man  is  now  a  builder  of  ideals.  Yet  the  cosmic 
setting  for  these  ideals  is  virtually  unchanged;  the 
framework  of  man's  universe  has  remained  much  the 
same.  It  is  at  heart  a  realm  of  personal  agents  with 
which  man  is  in  communication. 

In  all  the  nations  which  advanced  in  civilization, 
this  transformation  within  mythology  makes  itself  felt. 
Ormuzd,  the  Persian  god,  passes  from  a  personification 
of  the  sunlight  in  its  battle  with  darkness  to  a  spiritual 
deity  who  is  the  guardian  of  all  the  virtues.  Indra,  the 
Vedic  god,  is  likewise  at  first  the  sky  through  which 
the  clouds  move,  and  is  later  conceived  as  the  creator 
and  sustainer  of  the  world.  The  same  process  reveals 
itself  in  Egyptian  mythology  for  we  pass  from  Ra,  the 
sun  deity,  to  Neph  and  Pthah  who  represent  creative 
energies  and  to  Osiris,  the  god  of  truth  and  goodness. 
Thus  there  is  in  mythology  a  universal  movement,  from 
the  visible  aspects  of  nature  as  personified,  to  supernal 
beings  back  of  nature,  protecting  what  is  thought  of  as 
highest  and  noblest  in  human  conduct.  The  setting 
remains  constant  while  new  wine  is  poured  into  the 
old  bottles.  The  truth  of  the  matter  is  that  man  grew 
faster  ethically  than  he  did  intellectually.  Philosophy 
and  science  were  far  harder  to  achieve  than  glimpses 
of  justice  and  kindness.  The  very  growth  of  society 
in  numbers  forced  man  to  adapt  his  conduct  to  a 


26          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

social  life  and  to  have  regard  to  his  neighbors.  The 
ideals  advocated  by  Confucius,  Buddha,  Plato,  Hosea 
and  Jesus  are  as  noble  as  our  own.  But  advance  in 
knowledge  and  its  presuppositions  is  more  revolutionary 
and  extraordinary  because  more  artificial  and  more 
alien  to  the  psychological  prejudices  of  the  mass  of  the 
people.  Ethics,  like  religion,  remained  for  ages  peace- 
fully within  the  mythological  setting  which  primitive 
man  unconsciously  constructed. 

We  have  purposely  omitted  prior  reference  to  the  de- 
velopment of  religion  among  the  Hebrews  because  their 
religion  has  been  so  important  for  our  own  civilization. 
The  mythological  element  in  it  was  relatively  small  for 
various  reasons ;  yet  this  is  true  only  if  we  have  regard 
to  fable  and  aesthetic  tale.  Their  world  was  one  of  per- 
sonal agency  just  as  it  was  for  other  races.  But  the 
Hebrews  made  a  fresh  start  long  after  they  had  isolated 
themselves  from  the  general  Semitic  stock.  Their  mi- 
gration from  their  ancient  home  could  not  help  but 
wither  the  more  local  myths,  and  this  tendency  was  re- 
enforced  by  the  adoption  of  a  new  god,  Yahweh,  the 
God  of  the  Kenites.  Yahweh  was  a  god  of  the  lightning 
who  thundered  from  Mount  Sinai,  and  he  was  a  god  of 
battles,  just  as  was  Thor,  the  thunder-god  of  the  Scan- 
dinavians. This  war  god  naturally  obtained  their  alle- 
giance during  the  years  of  conflict  with  the  Canaanites, 
and  gained  in  prestige  as  time  elapsed.  The  Canaan- 
ites had  their  local  Baal  cults  and  myths,  and  these  were 
associated  with  agricultural  festivals  and  with  that  wor- 
ship of  fertility  which  was  so  wide-spread  among  the 
ancients.  The  followers  of  Yahweh,  on  the  other  hand, 
were  hillmen  and  shepherds  and  their  rites  were  closely 
connected  with  sacrificial  observances. 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  27 

As  time  passed,  the  two  races  mingled  and  the  tend- 
ency was  toward  an  amalgamation  of  their  respective 
cults.  But  a  storm  of  protest  set  in,  led  by  the 
prophets  and  the  simpler,  less  concretely  naturalistic 
religion  prevailed.  The  very  simplicity  of  the  cult  of 
Yahweh  made  it  a  fitting  basis  for  that  ethical  develop- 
ment which  we  associate  with  the  names  of  Amos, 
Hosea,  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah.  Only  an  ignorance  of  the 
ethical  deepening  of  other  religions  can  excuse  the 
belief  that  this  ethical  development  was  absolutely 
unique.  Probably  it  is  the  aspect  of  national  mono- 
theism, or  henotheism,  as  it  should  more  accurately  be 
called,  which  impresses  so  many,  whereas  this  feature 
was  an  historical  accident.  To  claim  that  the  Hebrew 
development  was  unique  and  therefore  supernatural  is 
to  assume  that  the  relatively  unique  must  be  supernat- 
ural. But  such  an  assumption  has  no  foundation  in 
experience,  for  differences  in  the  development  of  na- 
tions are  the  rule  rather  than  the  exception.  Shall  we 
say  that  English  constitutional  development  is  super- 
natural because  no  other  nation  achieved  such  a  form 
of  government  by  itself?  Shall  we  assert  that  Greek 
art  was  supernatural  because  it  was  unique?  Is  it  not 
evident  that  the  wish  has  been  father  to  the  thought  in 
this  case?  All  early  peoples  have  looked  upon  them- 
selves as  chosen  and  upon  other  peoples  as  gentiles  and 
barbarians.  We  have  accepted  this  prejudice  of  the 
Hebrews  because  we  have  adopted  a  modified  form  of 
their  religion  with  its  racial  traditions. 

But  while  conditions  in  Palestine  were  not  favorable 
to  the  flowering  of  a  rich  and  delicate  mythology,  it 
would  be  false  to  deny  the  presence  of  a  mythological 
motive  in  the  Hebrew  outlook.  The  whole  story  of  the 


28          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

intimate  relations  of  Yahweh  to  his  people  and  to  their 
ancestors  is  through  and  through  mythological.  Mil- 
ton's epic  was  made  possible  by  the  folklore  incorpo- 
rated in  the  Bible.  There  are  many  traces  in  the  Bible 
of  a  common  Semitic  tradition  in  spite  of  the  reactions 
which  it  underwent.  Recent  Semitic  scholarship  has 
made  it  evident  that  Babylonian  beliefs  had  penetrated 
to  this  kindred  people.  There  are  sun-myths  and  tales 
of  semi-divine  heroes.  After  the  exile,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  Persia  and  Babylonia,  there  arose  a  belief  in 
demons  and  angels  as  powers  at  work  in  the  world  for 
good  and  evil.  These  mythical  creatures  passed  into 
the  outlook  of  the  Western  mind  by  way  of  Christianity, 
and  offered  fruitful  material  for  art  and  poetry,  and 
for  the  gradual  blossoming  of  new  myths  around  the 
Christian  epic  of  the  universe.  Milton  and  Dante  un- 
fold the  inner  meaning  of  life  in  terms  which  cannot 
be  understood  apart  from  beliefs  which  have  their  ulti- 
mate roots  in  primitive  conceptions  of  the  world. 

Christian  mythology,  like  Greek  mythology,  has  its 
aesthetic  value,  but  it  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  this 
value  is  removed  when  the  old  credence  has  departed. 
To  appreciate  the  beauty  of  Botticelli's  Venus,  it  is  not 
necessary  to  believe  that  Venus  arose  from  this  sea- 
foam;  in  like  manner,  to  enjoy  Christian  art  it  is  not 
required  that  we  accept  the  literal  truth  of  its  symbols. 
Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  very  doubtful  whether  many  edu- 
cated people  to-day  take  the  minor  characters  of  the 
Christian  pantheon  very  seriously.  We  would  be  more 
than  surprised  to  hear  angelic  messengers  chanting  in 
the  heavens  above  us.  Only  because  they  are  bound  up 
with  a  system  of  attitudes  and  values  dear  to  men,  are 
these  mystic  beings  givefl.  tjiat  }ialf-belief  which  pre- 


THE  AGE  OF  MYTH  29 

vents  them  from  falling  into  that  limbo  to  which  drag- 
ons and  griffins  and  nymphs  have  descended.  That  this 
will  be  their  ultimate  fate  is  certain.  In  Protestant 
countries,  in  which  moral  values  control  religion  and 
sensuous  elements  exercise  little  attraction,  these  figures 
have  already  retreated  far  into  the  background.  Yet 
the  average  religious  mind  likes  to  dally  with  the 
thought  of  them,  much  as  the  child,  who  no  longer  be- 
lieves in  fairies,  still  wishes  to  indulge  in  make-believe 
when  the  everyday  world  becomes  too  bare  and  well- 
ordered. 

The  age  of  myth,  then,  corresponds  to  a  naive  exten- 
sion of  human  characteristics  to  natural  phenomena. 
The  world  becomes  a  drama  to  which  man  holds  the  key 
in  his  own  life.  He  feels  himself  surrounded  by  mys- 
terious forces  and  agencies,  far  surpassing  his  own  puny 
strength,  and  inevitably  conceives  them  in  analogy  with 
his  own  activities.  They  differ  not  so  much  in  how 
they  work  as  in  what  they  do.  In  this  way,  the  gods 
were  born  into  the  world  —  and  once  born  man  has  been 
unable  to  free  himself  from  them.  As  he  has  grown 
in  mental  and  moral  stature,  he  has  unconsciously  re- 
flected into  them  this  increased  knowledge  and  these 
higher  ideals.  And  the  process,  once  begun,  has  con- 
tinued to  the  present.  Not  until  he  has  outgrown  old 
fears  and  relinquished  unwarranted  hopes  will  these  be- 
liefs lose  their  power.  Then  and  not  till  then,  will 
reason  be  able  to  supplant  mythology  by  knowledge. 


STORIES  OF  CREATION 

IN  stories  of  creation  we  have  the  imagination  of  primi- 
tive man  at  work,  trying  to  answer  questions  which  it 
was  no  more  prepared  to  answer  than  a  child  of  seven 
is  in  a  position  to  understand  higher  mathematics. 
The  savage  has  an  answer  for  every  question  because  he 
has  no  idea  of  the  difficulty  of  the  problems  involved* 
A  name  or  a  story  will  completely  satisfy  him  because 
he  is  uncritical.  Now  the  stories  of  creation,  or  cos- 
mogonies, as  they  are  technically  called,  are  peculiarly 
interesting  because  they  give  us  an  insight  into  the 
concrete  terms  which  the  imagination  was  forced  to  use 
in  its  attempt  to  picture  the  past  and  the  origin  of 
things.  Moreover,  we  can  trace  the  changes  these 
nai've  stories  underwent  as  man's  experience  broadened 
and  he  was  able  to  think  more  abstractly.  We  can  be- 
come acquainted  with  the  materials  with  which  the 
poet-priest  of  the  pre-scientific  past  worked  to  build 
himself  a  marvelous  and  soul-satisfying  tale ;  and  we  are 
able,  as  history  unrolls,  to  watch  myth  gradually  pass 
into  theology. 

The  desire  to  explain  how  nature  came  to  be  and  how 
man  arose  was  well-nigh  universal.  Everywhere  we  find 
accounts  of  a  distant  past  when  the  gods  walked  on 
earth.  Egyptians,  Hindoos,  Greeks,  Japanese,  Poly- 
nesians, Hebrews  and  American  Indians  had  tales  of  the 
origin  of  things  to  tell.  This  desire  to  account  for 

30 


STORIES  OF  CREATION  31 

origins  is  not  hard  to  understand.  The  same  psycho- 
logical tendency  is  at  work  to-day  and  gives  zest  to  the 
theory  of  evolution.  Why  did  the  Descent  of  Man 
awaken  such  a  storm  throughout  the  Western  World 
if  not  because  it  shook  the  story  of  man's  first  coming, 
which  had  been  handed  down  from  generation  to  genera- 
tion since  the  mists  of  antiquity  ?  Man  wants  to  know 
about  himself,  how  he  came  here,  and  whither  he  is 
going.  The  vogue  of  the  Riibavyat  of  Omar  Khayyam 
is  in  large  measure  due  to  the  haunting  sense  of  man's 
ignorance  of  his  place  in  the  world.  Who  set  the  stage 
and  placed  the  puppets  on  it?  Primitive  man  always 
answered  his  questions  in  terms  of  Beings  like  himself, 
although  more  powerful  and  longer  lived.  All  agency 
was  for  him  personal  agency.  And  there  are,  even  now, 
a  surprisingly  large  number  of  people  who  can  think  in 
no  other  terms.  The  universe  is  for  them  the  play- 
ground of  spirits  who  work  their  will  upon  it.  Matter 
and  energy  and  the  slow  growth  of  years  are  ideas  which 
strike  them  cold.  Their  view  of  the  universe  is  dra- 
matic and  even  melodramatic ;  it  is  personal,  mythical. 

Let  us  glance  at  some  of  these  attempts  to  account 
for  the  world.  We  shall  not  find  them  very  coherent  or 
deep,  but  we  shall  always  find  them  instructive  for  the 
light  they  throw  upon  man,  himself,  and  the  limits  set 
to  his  theories  about  origins  by  the  concrete  agency  to 
which  he  perforce  appealed.  We  shall  then  realize  how 
natural  were  the  questions  which  man  asked  and  which 
he  sought  to  answer,  and  how  impossible  it  was  for  him 
to  offer  any  other  solutions  than  those  imaginative  ones 
which  grew  up  in  folk-lore  and  which  have  been  devel- 
oped and  re-cast  in  the  various  religions. 

No  early  race  had  the  idea  of  an  absolute  beginning. 


32          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

The  attempt  made  was  simply  to  carry  things  back  to 
different  conditions,  to  a  less  developed  state  of  things, 
and  then  to  trace  the  larger  steps  by  means  of  which 
the  later  world,  as  they  saw  it,  came  about.  Those  races 
which  had  little  power  for  abstract  thinking  and  had 
achieved  few  impersonal  ideas  kept  very  near  to  con- 
crete phenomena  and  explained  their  own  origin  in  terms 
of  a  mythical  ancestor,  or  animal  magician,  while  they 
left  the  earth  and  the  sky  very  much  as  it  was.  The 
Iroquois  Indians,  for  instance,  believed  that  their  orig- 
inal female  ancestress  fell  from  heaven.  There  was  no 
land  to  receive  her,  but  it  suddenly  bubbled  up  under  her 
feet  and  waxed  bigger,  so  that  ere  long  a  whole  country 
was  visible.  Other  branches  of  the  tribe  held  that  ot- 
ters and  beavers  hastened  to  dig  up  enough  earth  from 
beneath  the  water  to  provide  her  with  an  island  on 
which  to  dwell.  The  Athapascans  of  Northwestern 
Canada  asserted  that  a  raven,  whose  eyes  were  fire, 
whose  glances  were  lightning,  and  the  clapping  of  whose 
wings  was  thunder,  descended  to  the  ocean.  Instantly, 
the  earth  arose  and  remained  floating  on  the  surface 
of  the  waters.  It  was  from  this  Being  that  the  tribe 
traced  its  descent.  We  must  remember  how  near  akin 
are  animals  and  men  at  this  stage  of  human  develop- 
ment. Once  throw  oneself  into  the  atmosphere  of  myth 
and  it  is  not  difficult  to  comprehend  how  such  stories 
grew  up. 

But  we  are  more  interested  in  tracing  the  develop- 
ment of  stories  of  creation  from  primitive  types  to 
subtler  and  more  abstract  forms;  and  a  collection  of 
savage  folk-lore  on  the  subject  would,  therefore,  be  of 
little  value.  Let  us  pass,  then,  to  the  accounts  given 
by  races  which  have  played  a  part  in  history. 


STORIES  OF  CREATION  33 

The  Egyptian  account  is  as  follows :  In  the  begin- 
ning was  the  primitive  ocean,  a  wild  waste  of  waters. 
From  this  tossing  chaos  sprang  land  and  sky,  and  it 
was  from  their  embrace  that  other  things  arose.  The 
general  idea  present  in  this  account  was  probably  de- 
rived from  the  Nile  floods  or  from  glimpses  of  the  ocean. 
The  lifting  of  the  watery  mists  which  are  seen  rising 
each  morning  from  the  Nile,  the  parting  of  them  from 
the  earth  and  the  raising  of  them  to  the  sky  was  a  work 
variously  attributed  to  Ra  (the  sun)  or  Shu  (the  at- 
mosphere). Gradually  the  Egyptians  developed  ideas 
of  various  deities  all  of  whom  derive  from  objects  and 
activities  in  nature.  To  these  were  then  assigned  the 
work  of  creation.  At  first  this  work  was  thought  of  as 
a  shaping  or  fashioning  in  a  literal  sense.  Ptah,  the 
Great  Artificer,  shapes  the  sun  and  moon  eggs  on  his 
potter's  wheel;  Osiris,  the  god  of  vegetation,  formed 
with  his  hand  the  earth,  its  waters,  its  air,  its  plants,  all 
its  cattle,  all  its  birds,  all  its  winged  fowl,  all  its  rep- 
tiles, all  its  quadrupeds.  Is  this  view  very  far  different 
from  the  account  given  in  the  so-called  second  story  of 
creation  beginning  with  verse  four  of  Genesis?  There 
it  is  written :  "  And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the 
dust  of  the  ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the 
breath  of  life ;  and  man  became  a  living  soul." 

Somewhat  later  developed  the  more  priestly,  or  theo- 
logical, account;  just  as  it  did  for  the  Hebrews.  Crea- 
tion was  then  conceived  more  mystically  as  an  act  of 
will  issuing  in  a  word  of  command.  We  should  remem- 
ber that,  for  primitive  thought,  words  were  not  mere 
verbal  signs,  useful  to  man  as  means  of  communication, 
but  were  conceived,  more  realistically  and  naively,  as 
essential  parts  of  things,  bound  up  with  their  existence. 


34          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

This  same  fact  will  explain  much  of  the  ritual  of  magic. 
When  God  says,  "  Let  there  be  light,"  light  is  selected 
and,  as  it  were,  coerced  into  existence  by  the  name.  As 
time  passed  man  became  reflective  and  critical.  He  had 
nothing  essentially  new  to  offer,  yet  he  felt  dissatisfied 
with  the  crude  imagery  of  tradition.  Step  by  step  with 
the  growth  of  society,  we  always  find  the  passage  from 
creation  myths  built  around  the  idea  of  spontaneous 
generation  to  the  idea  of  a  god  who  molds  men  as  a 
potter  does  his  clay,  and  thence  to  a  fiat  in  which  the 
creative  will  of  a  supernatural  and  transcendent  deity 
finds  expression.  There  is  a  remarkable  similarity  in 
creation  stories,  just  as  we  would  expect.  The  same 
few  motives  repeat  themselves  with  local  variations. 

The  oldest  of  the  Greek  myths  of  creation  are  to  be 
found  in  Homer  and  Hesiod.  For  Homer,  Oceanus  is 
the  father  of  the  gods,  while  Tethys,  called  the  suckling 
or  nursing  one,  is  the  mother.  Back  of  these  august, 
generative  powers,  however,  lies  Night  whom  even  Zeus 
is  afraid  to  offend.  We  must  remember  that  darkness 
is  a  presence  for  early  man,  as  real  as  water  or  air,  and 
that  man  feared  it  as  mysterious  and  threatening.  Al- 
ways we  must  put  aside  the  knowledge  which  science  has 
given  us  and  sink  down  into  this  vague  world  of  the 
past,  filled  with  tremendous  shapes  and  forces.  Hesi- 
od's  view  is  best  given  in  his  own  words : 

"  From  chaos  were  generated  Erebos  and  black  Night, 
And  from  Night  again  were  generated  Ether  and  Day, 
Whom  she  brought  forth,  having  conceived  from  the 
embrace  of  Erebos." 

Here  we  have  the  same  sexual  motive  at  work  as  among 
the  Egyptians;  a  motive  which,  as  we  should  expect, 


STORIES  OF  CREATION  85 

is  well-nigh  universal.  During  the  sixth  century  there 
was  an  efflorescence  of  creation  myths  among  the  Greeks. 
These  are  associated  with  the  name  of  Orpheus,  and 
are  commonly  classed  together  as  Orphic  cosmogonies. 
Soon  after,  philosophic  speculation  began  to  come  into 
its  own  and  the  Greeks  "  left  off  telling  tales."  Burnet, 
a  famous  student  of  Greek  culture,  asserts  that  "  his- 
tory teaches  that  science  has  never  existed  except 
among  those  peoples  which  the  Greeks  have  influenced." 
But  we  shall  leave  the  Greeks  for  the  present;  it  may 
be  that  we  shall  meet  them  and  their  influence  again. 

The  Hindoos  passed  from  crude  views  to  more  ab- 
stract and  refined  concepts  just  as  the  Egyptians  and 
Greeks  did.  In  the  Vedic  period,  there  are  many  con- 
tradictory statements  about  the  creation  of  the  world 
and  of  the  gods.  Heaven  and  earth  are  spoken  of  as 
the  parents  of  the  gods,  and  at  the  same  time  the  gods 
are  said  to  have  built,  or  woven,  the  whole  world.  When 
we  remember  that  there  was  little  distinction  at  first 
between  nature  and  the  gods,  we  are  not  surprised  at 
this  contradiction.  Moreover,  as  one  writer  suggests, 
this  contradiction  seems  only  to  have  enhanced  the  mys- 
tery of  the  conception.  When  religion  enters,  logic  is 
not  always  desired. 

Another  conception  which  we  find  in  Hindoo  thought 
is  that  of  a  world-egg.  This  analogy  is  so  natural 
that  we  are  not  surprised  to  discover  it.  Let  us  glance 
at  one  of  the  accounts  given  in  the  Satapatha  Brah- 
mana :  "  In  the  beginning  this  universe  was  water, 
nothing  but  water.  The  waters  desired,  '  How  can  we 
be  reproduced? '  So  saying,  they  toiled,  they  per- 
formed austerity.  While  they  were  performing  auster- 
ity, a  golden  egg  came  into  existence.  Being  produced, 


36          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

it  then  became  a  year.  Wherefore  this  golden  egg 
floated  about  for  the  period  of  a  year.  From  it  in  a 
year  a  male  came  into  existence,  who  was  Prajapati. 
.  .  .  He  divided  this  golden  egg.  ...  In  a  year  he  de- 
sired to  speak.  He  uttered  '  bhur,'  which  became  this 
earth ;  *  bhuvah,'  which  became  this  firmament ;  and 
'  svar,'  which  became  that  sky.  .  .  .  Desiring  progeny, 
he  went  on  worshiping  and  toiling.  He  conceived  prog- 
eny in  himself;  with  his  mouth  he  created  the 
gods.  .  .  ." 

This  account  of  the  creation  is  characteristic  of 
Hindoo  thought  as  it  passes  from  the  frank  admiration 
of  nature,  which  distinguishes  the  Vedic  period,  to  what 
more  nearly  approaches  theosophic  speculation.  Yet 
there  is  no  genuine  break  with  the  animism  of  primitive 
times.  The  waters  are  thought  of  as  desiring,  that  is, 
they  are  held  to  be  alive  and  vaguely  conscious.  The 
belief  that  words  are  inseparable  from  things  should 
again  be  noted.  "  Bhur "  becomes  the  earth,  and 
"  svar  "  becomes  the  sky. 

In  the  course  of  time,  Hindoo  thought  became  more 
abstract  and  sophisticated  without  having  achieved  any 
method  which  would  lead  to  tested  knowledge.  An  an- 
alogy may  make  clearer  to  the  reader  the  vicious  intel- 
lectual situation.  Imagine  the  subtle  minds  of  the 
Mediaeval  scholastics,  without  the  material  furnished 
them  by  the  Greek  philosophy,  and  obliged  to  exercise 
themselves  upon  magic,  myth  and  legend.  The  very 
energy  and  subtlety  of  their  intellects  would  lead  them 
into  all  sorts  of  phantasmagoria.  Theosophy  —  and 
a  large  share  of  what  is  called  theology  —  is  simply  -a 
refining  and  subtilizing  of  mythology.  The  more  dif- 
ficult and  abstract  the  thought,  the  more  significance 


STORIES  OF  CREATION  37 

it  is  assumed  to  possess.  The  penetrative  and  ex- 
ploring power  of  mere  untested  speculation  is  taken 
for  granted.  Words  throw  a  spell  over  the  mind 
because  nothing  of  a  more  positive  character  is  be- 
fore it  to  counteract  their  charm.  Even  to-day  we 
all  know  of  people  who  like  to  employ  such  terms  as 
force,  and  unity,  and  spirit,  and  will.  The  very  vague- 
ness of  the  words  exercises  a  fascination  which  smothers 
the  slight  demand  for  explanation.  Just  as  the  Jews 
of  the  Dispersion  spoke  of  Wisdom  as  the  first-born 
creature  of  God  and  gave  this  abstraction  an  objective 
existence,  so  the  Hindoo  poets  and  theosophists  ex- 
plained the  world  in  terms  which  seem  to  the  scientif- 
ically trained  mind  subjective  and  irrelevant.  For  all 
its  apparent  profundity,  such  an  outlook  represents  a 
lower  stage  than  that  which  science  has  reached. 
Subtlety  is  not  enough;  it  must  be  a  servant  to  the 
right  methods  of  investigation.  Dialectic  and  imagina- 
tive vividness  cannot  give  truth  to  ideas  not  adapted 
to  explain  the  sort  of  a  world  we  live  in. 

Those  creation  stories  developed  by  the  Hebrews  with 
the  aid  of  the  Babylonians  have  had  most  influence  on 
Western  thought  and,  therefore,  deserve  considerable 
attention.  The  motives  and  mental  processes  at  work 
are,  however,  essentially  those  which  we  have  already 
examined.  Unfortunately,  we  have  only  hints  here  and 
there  in  the  Old  Testament  of  the  more  primitive  tra- 
ditions which  were  worked  over  and  built  upon  by  the 
priests  and  prophets.  Moreover,  the  Yahweh  religion 
seems  to  have  been  adopted  quite  late  and  to  have  made 
easy  a  break  with  the  older  tales.  Probably  few  read- 
ers of  the  Bible,  who  have  not  made  a  systematic  study 
of  Semitic  literature,  are  aware  that  ancient  strands  of 


38          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

folk-lore  are  scattered  through  it.  In  Psalm  74,  for  in- 
stance, there  is  a  good  instance  of  primitive  views : 
"  Thou  didst  divide  the  sea  by  thy  strength ;  Thou  break- 
est  the  head  of  Leviathan  in  pieces.  .  .  .  Thou  didst 
cleave  fountain  and  flood."  In  Job,  likewise,  there  are 
references  to  these  deeds  of  Yahweh  in  the  far  past. 
Very  few  casual  readers  ask  themselves  who  Rahab  and 
the  Flying  Serpent  and  Leviathan  were.  Now  investi- 
gation has  shown  that  we  have,  in  these  references  to  the 
deeds  of  Yahweh,  fragments  of  the  Babylonian  myth  of 
creation.  These  creatures  are  monsters  whom  Yahweh 
makes  captive  before  he  orders  the  original  chaos  into 
a  cosmos.  In  doing  this,  he  is  a  counterpart  of  Mar- 
duk,  the  Babylonian  creator.  These  monsters,  like  the 
gods  who  conquer  them,  are  only  personified  forms  of 
phenomena  in  the  heavens  above  and  the  earth  beneath. 
Let  us  now  consider  the  stories  of  creation  given  in 
Genesis.  It  is  not  widely  enough  known  that  there  are 
two  distinct  accounts  which,  although  they  are  exter- 
nally combined,  can  easily  be  separated  even  in  the 
English  translation.  The  oldest  version  begins  with 
chapter  two,  verse  five.  This  version  is  called  the  pro- 
phetic account.  It  assumes  that  the  world  already  ex- 
ists and  concerns  itself  only  with  man's  appearance, 
the  institution  of  marriage,  and  the  general  features  of 
man's  life.  God  forms  man  out  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground,  as  a  potter  molds  his  clay,  and  breathes  into 
him  the  breath  of  life.  He  places  him  in  a  garden  to 
dress  and  keep  it.  But  the  incidents  which  follow  are 
so  familiar  to  every  one  that  there  is  no  need  to  repeat 
them.  Scholars  have  pointed  out  that  this  account  is 
very  similar  to  that  current  in  Babylonia.  The  mo- 
tives are  like  those  found  in  the  Gilgamish  and  Adapa 


STORIES  OF  CREATION  39 

myths.  The  differences  in  general  tone  and  in  geo- 
graphical details  can  readily  be  explained  by  the  later 
date  —  about  the  eighth  century  —  and  the  character 
of  the  Palestinian  landscape.  Those  who  read  Hebrew 
will  note  the  difference  in  vocabulary  between  the  second 
chapter  in  Genesis  and  the  first,  while  those  who  are 
confined  to  the  English  translation  should  especially 
note  that  the  two  words,  Lord  and  God,  are  combined 
in  the  prophetic  account.  There  are  many  nai've,  and 
obviously  primitive,  touches  in  this  creation  story  which 
give  it  a  quaint  charm.  Only  those,  however,  who  are 
themselves  nai've  in  their  outlook  upon  the  world  can 
dream  of  taking  it  as  other  than  folk-lore.  I  must 
confess  that  it  is  a  mystery  to  me  that  so  many  fairly 
educated  men  can  take  it  as  anything  but  what  it  so 
obviously  is,  a  creation  myth. 

The  creation  story,  told  in  the  first  chapter,  is  called 
by  scholars  the  priestly  account.  It  is  post-exilic  and, 
so,  relatively  late.  The  foundation  consists  of  mythi- 
cal ideas  which  go  back  to  the  mists  of  antiquity. 
From  these  were  derived  certain  terms  which  are 
scarcely  translatable  into  English.  The  reader  has 
been  further  confused  by  a  poetic  and  inexact  render- 
ing of  many  Hebrew  phrases.  The  "  spirit  of  God  "  is 
literally  the  "  wind  of  God,"  an  idea  which  probably  is 
historically  connected  with  the  Babylonian  tale  of  how 
Marduk  uses  the  wind  as  his  instrument  in  his  fight 
against  Tiamat,  the  monster  of  the  deep.  Tiamat  has 
become  Tehom,  translated  as  the  "  deep." 

In  spite  of  the  lapse  in  verse  26,  into  the  language 
of  polytheism,  the  priestly  account  represents  a  late 
theological  level  in  which  creation  is  conceived  as  the 
passage  of  will  and  word  into  existence.  The  effect  is 


40          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

majestic  and  intensely  dramatic  in  its  simplicity.  Yet 
how  else  can  critical  thought  portray  creation?  An 
omnipotent,  personal  God  is  necessarily  conceived  as 
one  who  has  the  power  to  call  things  into  being.  To 
ask  how  he  does  this  is  meaningless,  for  it  ignores  the 
stark  power  which  is  assumed.  In  accordance  with  the 
genius  of  the  Semite,  then,  God  was  pictured  as  a  mon- 
arch whose  very  will  brought  forth  without  effort. 
But  a  little  reflection  must  convince  us  that  this  con- 
ception neither  makes  creation  thinkable  in  any  genu- 
ine sense  nor  proves  its  occurrence.  We  have  merely 
attained  the  idealization  of  the  creation  myth,  its  most 
perfect  form. 

The  Christian  conception  of  the  creation  rests 
largely  upon  the  Hebrew  account.  The  uncritical  way 
in  which  this  was  studied  and  accepted,  previous  to  the 
rise  of  modern  science  and  the  higher  criticism,  remains 
a  marvel  to  those  who  are  not  acquainted  with  the 
psychology  of  religion.  Sanctioned  by  religion,  ideal- 
ized myth  naturally  held  its  own  until  something  positive 
arose  to  dispute  it.  The  Church  Fathers,  the  scholas- 
tics, and  the  leaders  of  the  Reformation  accepted  the 
stories  in  Genesis  as  revelations.  They  believed  that 
there  was  a  God  and  that  he  had  revealed  to  man  what 
he  had  done  and  what  his  plan  of  salvation  was.  These 
myths  fitted  into  their  view  of  the  world  as  an  essential 
and  harmonious  ingredient  of  it.  What  motive  would 
there  be  for  skepticism?  Luther  states  that  "Moses 
is  writing  history  and  reporting  things  that  actually 
happened."  "  God  was  pleased,"  says  Calvin,  "  that 
a  history  of  the  creation  should  exist."  Of  course,  no 
really  educated  man  of  to-day  can  accept  this  attitude 
unless  he  wishes  to  sin  against  his  reason.  It  is  unfor- 


STORIES  OF  CREATION  41 

tunate  that  there  has  not  been  sufficient  openness  of 
mind  to  make  possible  a  wider  extension  of  the  knowl- 
edge which  scholars  have  been  accumulating.  The  only 
candid  thing  to  do  is  to  class  these  Hebrew  stories  of 
the  creation  with  the  myths  which  grew  up  in  other 
parts  of  the  world.  All  represent  attempts  to  picture 
a  beginning  of  things  as  they  are,  by  appeal  to  a  mag- 
nified and  magical  personal  agency.  Those  early 
thinkers  did  the  best  they  could  do  with  the  ideas  they 
had  at  hand.  They  were  innocent  of  our  modern  un- 
derstanding of  nature  as  a  scene  of  impersonal,  causal 
processes.  To  try  to  find  science  in  mythology  is  like 
looking  upon  Dante's  Divine  Comedy  as  a  tale  of  real 
adventure. 

It  is  interesting  to  study  the  speculations  which 
Christian  thinkers  have  evolved  upon  the  question  of 
creation.  Usually,  the  idea  of  a  creation  of  the  phys- 
ical world  out  of  nothing  by  a  fiat  has  been  favored. 
"  I  am  the  Lord,  that  maketh  all  things ;  that  stretches 
forth  the  heavens  alone;  that  spreadeth  abroad  the 
earth."  Such  is  the  natural  goal  of  the  idea  of  a  crea- 
tion. Yet  a  moment's  reflection  makes  us  realize  that 
the  position  is  entirely  deductive  and  without  a  shred  of 
evidence.  To  assign  to  a  hypothetical  agent  called 
God  powers  sufficient  to  produce  what  experience  tells 
us  exists  explains  nothing.  The  primary  assumption, 
of  course,  is  that  there  must  have  been  a  creation. 
But  the  conception  of  evolution  has  attacked  that  as- 
sumption at  its  very  foundation. 

Of  late,  there  have  been  attempted  compromises  with 
the  idea  of  evolution.  May  not  God  guide  the  course 
of  natural  change?  But  this  outlook  meets  with  cer- 
tain difficulties.  In  the  first  place,  was  the  physical 


42          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

world  created?  If  so,  it  must  have  been  the  best  of  all 
possible  physical  worlds,  or  else  God  is  either  not  om- 
nipotent or  not  omniscient  or  not  ideally  good.  And 
when  these  questions  are  raised,  we  pass  immediately 
into  a  field  of  mere  speculation.  The  centuries  have 
been  witnesses  of  disputes  between  advocates  of  different 
dogmas.  At  present,  there  seems  to  be  a  revival  of 
interest  in  the  idea  of  a  limited  and  youthful  deity 
struggling  against  odds  to  make  the  world  livable. 
But  God  becomes  a  part  of  the  universe  in  every  sense, 
and  so  we  are  led  to  the  idea  that  the  physical  world 
was  not  created  but  is,  rather,  co-existent  with  deity. 
Of  course,  there  are  many  possible  variations  on  the 
theme,  and  human  ingenuity  will  exhaust  itself  in  com- 
bining these  possibilities  in  various  ways. 

The  truth  is,  that  these  theological  speculations 
carry  us  nowhere.  Myth  and  dialectical  acuteness, 
however  skillfully  blended,  cannot  add  to  our  genuine 
knowledge  of  the  world.  Instead,  they  create  new 
problems  of  their  own  which  cannot  be  settled,  because 
there  is  no  way  of  testing  and  verifying  the  various 
solutions.  In  short,  the  premises  are  at  fault  and 
must  be  outgrown  and  left  behind.  Our  experience  no 
longer  suggests  to  us  the  idea  of  a  supernatural 
agency  at  work,  nor  are  we  so  prone  to  think 
of  an  act  of  creation  some  few  thousands  of  years 
in  the  past.  We  have  largely  outgrown  the  mytho- 
logical setting  out  of  which  theology  arose,  and  it 
is  tradition  and  the  lack  of  a  more  positive  view 
which  enable  it  to  retain  for  us  any  semblance  of 
plausibility.  There  is  nothing  inherently  irrational 
in  the  idea  of  creation;  it  simply  bears  witness  to  a 
looser,  more  personal  world  in  which  annihilation  and 


STORIES  OF  CREATION  43 

origination  were  familiar  events,  because  man  saw  only 
the  surface  of  things  and  was  not  able  to  follow  the 
continuities  which  bind  things  together  underneath. 
The  principle  of  conservation,  which  is  one  of  the 
grand  achievements  of  science,  is  like  a  two-edged 
sword:  it  destroys  not  only  the  belief  in  an  absolute 
annihilation  but,  likewise,  the  belief  in  an  absolute  be- 
ginning. Slowly,  but  surely,  this  new  view  of  nature 
will  have  its  effect  and  undermine  the  more  nai've  hy- 
pothesis of  a  creation.  The  emotional  reverberation  of 
the  accustomed  forms  of  speech,  reenforced  by  the  men- 
tal habits  encouraged  by  religion,  will  die  out  only  grad- 
ually. Man  is  instinctively  romantic  and  tends  to 
dramatize  the  world.  His  favorite  categories  are  per- 
sonal, and  he  has  a  profound  distaste  for  the  imperson- 
alism  of  science.  Only  the  slow  pressure  of  actual 
knowledge  will  lift  him  to  a  truer  view  of  the  world  in 
which  he  finds  himself. 


CHAPTER  IV 
MAGIC  AND  RITUAL 

EARLY  man  had  not  the  conception  of  natural  law  that 
we  now  possess.  In  order  even  partially  to  understand 
his  attitude  toward  things,  the  man  of  to-day  must  ab- 
stract from  the  idea  of  law  and  regularity  which  he 
has  shot  through  nature,  and  ignore  the  knowledge 
about  the  antecedents  of  events  which  close  observation 
and  careful  experiment  have  furnished  him  with.  In 
the  case  of  magic,  just  as  in  the  case  of  mythology, 
he  who  wishes  to  see  eye  to  eye  with  those  who  lived  long 
ago  must  rid  himself  for  the  time  being  both  of  the 
knowledge  which  science  has  accumulated  and  of  the 
mental  habits  of  enquiry  and  causal  explanation  which 
have  been  fostered  by  it.  These  habits  and  this  knowl- 
edge have  become  such  a  part  of  us  that  we  are  not 
fully  conscious  of  them  and  of  their  importance.  They 
are  like  the  clothes  we  wear  or  the  forms  of  politeness 
which  we  go  through  with  automatically.  It  is  only 
after  the  twentieth-century  man  delves  into  folklore 
or  reads  accounts  of  the  beliefs  and  practices  of  the 
past,  that  he  realizes  that  he  stands  on  the  shoulders 
of  innumerable  generations  as  the  inheritor  of  a  long 
process  of  mental  evolution.  Nothing,  perhaps,  can 
make  him  realize  this  fact  more  vividly  than  a  study 
of  magic. 

What  is  magic?     The  best  answer  is  to  give  examples 

44 


MAGIC  AND  RITUAL  45 

of  magic.  "  In  the  Malay  Peninsula  the  magician 
makes  an  image  like  a  corpse,  a  footstep  long.  If  you 
want  to  cause  sickness,  you  pierce  the  eye  and  blindness 
results;  or  you  pierce  the  waist  and  the  stomach  gets 
sick.  If  you  want  to  cause  death,  you  transfix  the 
head  with  a  palm  twig;  then  you  enshroud  the  image 
as  you  would  a  corpse  and  pray  over  it  as  if  you  were 
praying  over  the  dead;  then  you  bury  it  in  the  middle 
of  the  path  which  leads  to  the  place  of  the  person  whom 
you  wish  to  charm,  so  that  he  may  step  over  it."  An- 
cient agriculture  is  full  of  magic  rites  designed  to  ward 
off  evils.  "  To  this  day  a  Transylvanian  sower  thinks 
he  can  keep  birds  from  the  corn  by  carrying  a  lock 
in  the  seedbag."  To  this  day,  again,  in  Roumania,  Ser- 
bia and  parts  of  Germany,  the  peasants  try  to  bring 
on  a  rain  by  sprinkling  water  on  a  young  girl.  It  is 
supposed  that  nature  will  follow  suit  and  send  a  benefi- 
cent shower  upon  the  thirsty  earth.  Magic  is,  then,  an 
ingenious  way  of  making  or  leading  nature  to  do  what 
you  want  it  to  do.  As  Professor  Murray  writes: 
"  Agriculture  used  to  be  entirely  a  question  of  religion ; 
now  it  is  almost  entirely  a  question  of  science.  In  an- 
tiquity, if  a  field  was  barren,  the  owner  of  it  would 
probably  assume  that  the  barrenness  was  due  to  *  pol- 
lution, or  offense  somewhere.  He  would  run  through 
all  his  own  possible  offenses,  or  at  any  rate  those  of  his 
neighbors  and  ancestors,  and  when  he  eventually  decided 
the  cause  of  the  trouble,  the  steps  that  he  would  take 
would  all  be  of  a  kind  calculated  not  to  affect  the  chem- 
ical constitution  of  the  soil,  but  to  satisfy  his  own  emo- 
tions of  guilt  and  terror,  or  the  imaginary  being  he  had 
offended.  A  modern  man  in  the  same  predicament 
would  probably  not  think  of  religion  at  all,  at  any  rate 


46          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

in  the  earlier  stages;  he  would  say  it  was  a  case  for 
deeper  plowing  or  for  basic  slag." 

Magic  is  a  way  of  controlling  things.  Imitate  the 
act  desired,  in  a  certain  way,  and  it  will  come  to  pass. 
Talismans  and  amulets,  again,  possess  a  secret  power 
for  good  and  evil.  Ancient  societies  built  up  a  lore  of 
this  kind,  adding  to  material  objects  the  agency  of 
demons  under  the  control  of  magicians.  This  lore  is 
practically  a  feature  of  the  past.  Even  white  magic 
is  no  longer  good  form,  no  longer  accredited  by 
the  dominant  social  mind.  It  slinks  into  out-of-the- 
way  places  beyond  the  public  eye.  Yet  research  is 
showing  that  these  seemingly  discredited  beliefs  and 
points  of  view  seldom  completely  disappear.  They 
smolder  beneath  the  surface  and  flame  up  now  and  then 
in  a  startling  way  to  remind  us  that  society  in  its  evo- 
lution does  not  carry  all  its  members  along  at  the  same 
rate.  The  historian  is  surprised  to  find  that  rites 
which  are  given  an  exalted  place  in  various  religions 
are  magical  at  heart,  and  go  back  to  beliefs  which  have 
long  been  discredited  in  other  settings. 

Some  who  have  specialized  in  folklore  and  anthro- 
pology are  very  pessimistic  as  to  the  degree  in  which 
the  scientific  outlook  upon  nature  is  replacing  the  more 
primitive  attitude  associated  with  magic.  One  of  the 
greatest  authorities  upon  primitive  beliefs  and  customs 
writes  as  follows :  "  We  seem  to  move  on  a  thin  crust 
which  may  at  any  moment  be  rent  by  the  subterranean 
forces  slumbering  below.  .  .  .  Now  and  then  the  polite 
world  is  startled  by  a  paragraph  in  a  newspaper  which 
tells  how  in  Scotland  an  image  has  been  found  stuck 
full  of  pins  for  the  purpose  of  killing  an  obnoxious 
laird  or  minister,  how  a  woman  has  been  slowly  roasted 


MAGIC  AND  RITUAL  47 

to  death  as  a  witch  in  Ireland,  or  how  a  girl  has  been 
murdered  and  chopped  up  in  Russia  to  make  those 
candles  of  human  tallow  by  whose  light  thieves  hope  to 
pursue  their  midnight  trade  unseen."  The  danger  to 
civilization  foreseen  by  the  specialist  in  uncouth  cus- 
toms is  undoubtedly  exaggerated,  but  his  warning 
should  remind  us  that  education  has  a  very  valuable 
function  to  perform  in  training  an  ever  increasing  num- 
ber in  scientific  habits  of  thought. 

One  of  the  assumptions  which  underlie  magic  is  the 
idea  that  two  things  are  connected  in  nature  because 
they  are  like  one  another.  Space  is  not  looked  upon 
as  a  barrier  to  this  connection.  So  far  as  can  be  seen, 
anything  can  affect  anything  else;  and  the  slightest 
suggestion  of  such  a  relation  leads  to  the  belief  in  its 
reality.  There  is  almost  entire  absence  of  any  con- 
ception of  systematic  testing:  any  accidental  asso- 
ciation may  lead  the  savage  to  be  assured  of  an  im- 
portant sign.  Thus,  if  a  man  went  out  hunting  and 
saw  a  rabbit  cross  his  path,  and  then  had  bad  luck,  he 
would  be  sure  that  a  rabbit  is  a  sign  of  bad  luck. 
Moreover,  since  individuals  were  on  the  lookout  for  hoo- 
doos,  they  would  not  tempt  providence  a  second  time. 
This  example  illustrates  the  psychology  rather  than 
the  sociology  of  the  process.  It  must  be  remembered 
that  social  groups  developed  what  we  call  superstitions 
by  way  of  social  contagion  and  suggestion.  The  laugh- 
ing acquiescence  of  the  present  in  hoodoos,  mascots 
and  lucky  objects  cannot  be  traced  back  to  the  credu- 
lity of  any  one  individual.  Such  things  come  to  pass 
by  a  process  of  accretion  just  as  does  the  belief  that  a 
particular  house  is  haunted. 

Most  writers  on  the  subject  classify  magic  into  two 


48          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

kinds,  imitative  and  contagious.  These  varieties  are 
then  carried  back  to  two  principles  which  seem  to  gov- 
ern the  association  of  ideas.  Imitative  magic  follows 
the  law  of  association  by  similarity,  while  contagious 
magic  is  based  on  the  law  of  contiguity.  To  those  who 
have  studied  psychology  this  classification  will  present 
no  difficulties.  To  others  a  word  of  explanation  is, 
perhaps,  necessary.  Our  minds  connect  things  or  acts 
which  are  similar  (the  principle  of  similarity)  and 
those  which  are  experienced  or  thought  of  together 
(principle  of  contiguity).  Connections  are  thus  made 
between  things  and,  since  the  principles  are  so  liberal, 
almost  anything  can  be  connected  with  anything  else. 
It  is  this  liberality  which  is  alien  to  science.  Let  us 
glance  at  some  examples  of  both  kinds  of  magic. 

The  most  familiar  instance  of  imitative  magic  is  the 
device  by  means  of  which  an  individual  hopes  to  injure 
or  kill  an  enemy.  A  figure  of  the  enemy  is  made  and 
this  is  then  stuck  full  of  pins  or  else  burned  before  a 
slow  fire.  "  In  ancient  Babylonia  it  was  a  common 
practice  to  make  an  image  of  clay,  pitch,  honey,  fat, 
or  other  soft  material  in  the  likeness  of  an  enemy,  and 
to  injure  or  kill  him  by  burning,  burying,  or  otherwise 
ill-treating  it."  This  practice  occurs  in  the  highlands 
of  Scotland  to-day  as  well  as  in  Mexico,  Italy,  China 
and  other  countries.  Rossetti's  poem,  Sister  Helen,  has 
made  this  example  of  imitative  magic  fairly  familiar  to 
those  who  would  probably  never  otherwise  have  heard 
of  it. 

"  Why  did  you  melt  your  waxen  man, 

Sister  Helen? 
To-day  is  the  third  since  you  began." 


MAGIC  AND  RITUAL  49 

"  The  time  was  long,  yet  the  time  ran, 

Little  brother." 
"  Oh,  the  waxen  knave  was  plump  to-day, 

Sister  Helen; 

Now  like  dead  folk  he  has  dropped  away !  " 
"  Nay  now,  of  the  dead  what  can  you  say, 

Little  brother?  " 

There  are  many  other  curious  instances  of  imitative 
magic.  A  Bavarian  peasant  in  sowing  wheat  will  some- 
times wear  a  golden  ring,  in  order  that  the  corn  may 
have  a  fine  yellow  color.  Similarly,  in  many  parts  of 
Germany  and  Austria,  the  peasant  imagines  that  he 
makes  the  flax  grow  tall  by  dancing  or  leaping  high, 
or  by  jumping  backwards  from  a  table.  Telepathic 
action,  or  action  at  a  distance,  was  constantly  believed 
in.  The  hunter's  wife  abstained  from  spinning  for 
fear  the  game  should  turn  and  wind  like  the  spindle  and 
the  hunter  be  unable  to  hit  it. 

While  imitative  magic  works  through  fancied  resem- 
blance, contagious  magic  is  based  on  the  principle  that 
what  has  once  been  together  must  remain  forever  after 
in  a  sympathetic  relation,  so  that  what  is  done  to  one 
affects  the  other.  In  Sussex  some  forty  years  ago  a 
maid  servant  remonstrated  strongly  against  the  throw- 
ing away  of  children's  cast  teeth,  affirming  that  should 
they  be  found  and  gnawed  by  any  animal,  the  child's 
new  tooth  would  be,  for  all  the  world,  like  the  teeth 
of  the  animal  that  had  bitten  the  old  one.  It  was 
quite  the  custom  in  former  years  to  anoint  the  sword 
which  wounded  a  man  instead  of  the  wound  itself.  In 
Dryden's  play,  The  Tempest,  Ariel  directs  Prospero  to 
anoint  the  sword  which  wounded  Hippolite  and  to  wrap 
it  up  close  from  the  air.  Footprints,  pieces  of  cloth- 


50          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

ing,  pictures,  locks  of  hair,  all  are  connected  with  the 
individual  and  what  is  done  to  them  reacts  on  the  indi- 
vidual no  matter  where  he  is. 

At  first,  mankind  resorted  to  magic  as  naturally  as 
we  resort  to  the  information  given  us  by  science. 
There  was  nothing  nefarious  about  it.  Not  to  use  all 
the  precautions  in  your  power  and  employ  all  the  means 
you  could  think  of  was  simply  foolish.  As  time  went 
on,  however,  socially  approved  magic  became  distin- 
guished from  black  magic  or  that  which  it  was  wrong 
to  resort  to.  But  magic,  like  every  other  activity, 
tended  to  become  specialized.  Certain  persons  seemed 
to  possess  more  power  than  others,  and,  since  no  one 
could  tell  what  was  impossible,  what  appear  to  us  the 
most  absurd  claims  were  put  forth.  Things  were  be- 
lieved because  they  were  impossible.  It  was  under  the 
encouragement  of  this  "  will  to  believe  "  that  magic 
flourished  until  the  slow  growth  of  civilization  and  the 
awakening  reason  of  man  cast  doubts  upon  it. 

To  study  the  more  technical  developments  of  magic 
is  extremely  interesting.  Magicians  as  a  class  evolved 
a  lore  which  was  looked  upon  by  the  uninitiated  as  oc- 
cult and  mysterious.  The  mass  of  the  people  did  not 
know  of  any  bounds  which  could  be  set  to  their  power. 
They  and  their  deeds  were  shrouded  in  darkness  and 
surrounded  by  all  the  gruesome  associations  which  the 
awe-struck  imagination  could  conjure  up.  Such  was 
the  case  especially  when  magic  became  outlawed  as  an 
underhand  means  of  obtaining  things.  But  magic  had 
by  then  fallen  on  evil  days.  It  was  not  yet  disbelieved 
but  simply  condemned  because  it  did  not  fit  in  with 
the  dominant  religious  and  social  order.  The  exact 


MAGIC  AND  RITUAL  51 

relation  of  religion  and  magic  is  a  somewhat  complex 
problem  which  we  must  postpone  for  a  while. 

The  orient  was  always  the  fertile  home  of  magic: 
here  it  reached  its  more  technical  developments.  In 
Lucian  we  read  of  the  reputed  power  of  the  Chaldean 
wise  men  who  were  able  to  recite  spells  which  would  move 
even  the  gods.  All  through  the  East  this  esoteric  science 
existed.  In  Egypt  the  magicians  claimed  to  be  able  to 
compel  the  highest  gods  to  do  their  bidding.  By  this 
time  magic  had,  however,  passed  beyond  its  more  primi- 
tive character.  So  far  as  it  involved  signs  and  acts, 
these  were  of  a  highly  symbolic  type.  Geometrical  fig- 
ures of  intricate  construction,  phrases  consisting  of 
apparently  meaningless  words  or  of  words  supposed  to 
have  a  peculiar  significance,  and  the  names  of  gods  or 
demons  were  used  with  appropriate  ceremonies.  Many 
of  these  magical  formulae  have  come  down  to  us.  They 
are  spells  which  are  supposed  to  constrain  even  the 
highest  gods. 

The  story  of  Faust  reflects  very  well  the  notion  of 
magic  existing  in  Europe  during  the  Middle  Ages.  The 
reader  will  call  to  mind  the  scene  in  which  Faust  calls 
up  the  Earth-Spirit.  Devotees  of  Victor  Hugo  will 
remember  the  description  given  in  his  Notre-Dame  of 
Dom  Claude's  cell  and  this  ecclesiast's  unsuccessful 
attempts  to  use  the  hammer  of  Ezekiel.  The  important 
thing  was  to  discover  the  magic  word  which  this  famous 
rabbi  pronounced  as  he  struck  upon  the  nail  with  his 
hammer. 

We  have  frequently  called  attention  to  the  close  con- 
nection supposed  to  exist  between  name  and  thing. 
The  name  is  a  genuine  part  of  the  nature  of  the  thing. 


52          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

It  was  this  assumption  which  lay  at  the  root  of  the 
more  involved  magic  of  spells  and  incantations.  "  This 
is  why  every  ancient  Egyptian  had  two  names,"  writes 
F.  C.  Conybeare,  "  one  by  which  his  fellows  in  this 
world  knew  him,  and  the  other,  his  true  or  great  name, 
by  which  he  was  known  to  the  supernal  powers  and  in 
the  other  world."  He  who  possessed  knowledge  of  the 
name  of  another  had  him  to  that  extent  in  his  power. 
Fear  of  such  an  eventuality  led  many  nations  to  con- 
ceal the  true  name  of  their  god.  That  is  why  the  real 
name  of  the  god  of  the  Hebrews  is  a  matter  of  con- 
jecture to  us,  and  why  the  Romans  had  an  important 
deity  whose  name  is  completely  lost.  In  an  old  Egyp- 
tian legend,  the  goddess  Isis  asks  herself  this  question, 
"  Cannot  I,  by  virtue  of  the  great  name  of  Ra,  make 
myself  a  goddess  and  reign  like  him  in  heaven  and 
earth?  "  This  conception  reminds  us  of  the  passage 
in  Matthew,  "  Many  will  say  to  me  in  that  day,  Lord, 
Lord,  did  we  not  prophesy  by  thy  name,  and  by  thy 
name  cast  out  devils,  and  by  thy  name  do  mighty  works  ? 
And  then  will  I  profess  unto  them,  I  never  knew  you: 
depart  from  me,  ye  that  work  iniquity."  Again,  in 
Mark,  we  have  this  corresponding  passage,  "  John  said 
unto  him,  Teacher,  we  saw  one  casting  out  devils  in  thy 
name ;  and  we  forbade  him,  because  he  followed  us  not." 
Thus  names  were  things  to  conjure  with  in  a  literal 
sense.  How  few  of  those  who  read  these  verses  under- 
stand their  real  meaning,  that  they  involved  a  belief  in 
the  magic  of  names  !  In  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  Peter 
performs  a  miracle  simply  by  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ 
of  Nazareth.  Is  it  necessary  to  remark  that  such 
cures  as  were  possibly  performed  were  due  to  sugges- 


MAGIC  AND  RITUAL  53 

tion  of  the  sort  for  which  ecstatic  religious  faith  pre- 
pares the  way? 

In  pre-scientific  times,  diseases  were  regarded  as  the 
effect  of  spirits  or  demons.  Death,  itself,  is  consid- 
ered the  work  of  a  malignant  agent.  It  is  unnatural 
and  magical.  Savages  often  address  diseases  respect- 
fully as  Grandfather  Smallpox.  Jesus  heals  a  woman 
and  speaks  of  her  as  "  a  daughter  of  Abraham  whom 
Satan  has  bound  these  eighteen  years  past."  This  ad- 
dress is  in  accord  with  the  beliefs  of  that  day  everywhere. 
That  the  early  Christians  held  similar  views  is  no  mat- 
ter for  surprise.  They  were  children  of  their  age. 

Religion  and  magic  were  long  bound  up  with  one  an- 
other. It  is  useless  to  ask  which  came  first,  for  they 
are  not  mutually  exclusive  in  the  beginning.  Only  as 
an  ethical  monotheism,  with  a  high  respect  for  the  per- 
sonality and  power  of  the  deity  worshiped,  develops,  is 
the  magical  element  rejected.  There  are  few  religions, 
even  to-day,  which  do  not  contain  magical  elements, 
and  the  farther  back  in  time  we  go,  the  more  conspicu- 
ous is  the  presence  of  incantations  and  ritual  acts  im- 
puted to  have  a  mysterious  efficacy.  Man  had  sore 
need  of  help,  and  so  he  adopted  all  the  means  which 
accident,  fancy  and  ignorance  suggested.  If  certain 
acts  gave  him  the  mana  of  his  god  or  brought  pressure 
to  bear  upon  a  supernatural  agent,  so  much  the  better. 
Much  of  early  liturgy  is  a  mingling  of  spell  and  prayer, 
and  it  is  strictly  true  that  much  of  Christian  liturgy 
bears  traces  of  this  origin.  The  following  example 
shows  this  intertwining  of  higher  and  lower  elements: 
In  the  blessing  of  the  baptismal  water  on  the  eve  of 
Epiphany,  a  custom  prevalent  in  the  earlier  Church 


54          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

of  Rome,  the  priest,  while  praying  to  God  to  sanctify 
the  water,  dipped  a  crucifix  thrice  into  it,  recalling 
in  his  prayer  the  miracle  described  in  Exodus,  the 
sweetening  of  the  bitter  water  with  wood ;  then  followed 
antiphonal  singing  describing  Christ's  baptism  in  Jor- 
dan, which  sanctified  the  water.  "  We  appear  to  have 
here,"  writes  L.  D.  Farnell,  "  a  combination  of  the 
great  typical  forms  of  the  immemorial  religious  energy, 
prayer  pure  and  simple,  the  potent  use  of  the  spiritually 
charged  object,  the  fetish  (in  this  case  the  crucifix), 
and  an  intoned  or  chanted  narrative  which  has  the 
spell-value  of  suggestion." 

It  has  been  suggested  by  certain  investigators  that 
magic  is  nearer  science  than  religion.  It  is  the  attempt 
of  man  to  compel  things  to  do  what  he  desires.  In 
religion,  on  the  other  hand,  man  proclaims  his  help- 
lessness and  his  utter  dependence  upon  spiritual  pow- 
ers. There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this  difference  ex- 
ists and  comes  more  and  more  to  the  front.  But  it  is 
not  until  religion  evolves  into  spiritual  prayer  and 
communion  and  away  from  ritual  processes  that  the 
separation  takes  place.  Few  events  are  more  interest- 
ing than  the  gradual  rejection  of  magic  by  religion. 
But  does  not  this  rejection  involve  a  similar  rejection 
of  science?  Here,  again,  we  meet  the  inevitable  com- 
promise. White  magic  is  distinguished  from  black 
magic.  We  shall  have  more  to  say  of  this  relationship 
later. 

Only  after  countless  centuries  of  mistake  did  the 
intellect  of  man  discover  the  actual  relations  in  nature 
in  such  a  way  as  to  be  able  to  use  them  with  certainty. 
Subjective  associations  were  then  replaced  by  tested 
causal  connections.  Faith  in  mere  imitative  acts  was 


MAGIC  AND  RITUAL  55 

lost,  and  it  was  finally  realized  that  patient  research 
was  a  pre-condition  of  the  control  of  man's  environ- 
ment. Time,  alone,  could  show  what  was  possible  and 
what  was  impossible. 

We  have  pointed  out  that,  as  religion  became  more 
idealistic  in  its  conception  of  deity,  magic  tended  to 
drop  into  the  background.  Moral  motives  were  con- 
sidered the  sole  motives  capable  of  moving  him  to  benefi- 
cent action.  Prayer  came  to  be  thought  of  as  a  peti- 
tion for  the  good,  and  it  was  even  admitted  that  this 
omniscient  being  knew  better  than  the  petitioner  what 
was  best.  We  who  have  been  brought  up  in  the  Chris- 
tian belief  have  been  too  much  inclined  to  belittle  the 
character  and  intellect  of  races  with  a  different  herit- 
age. It  may  be  well,  then,  to  point  out  that  problems 
which  are  being  thrashed  over  to-day  in  Christian  com- 
munities were  discussed  and  answered  in  much  the  same 
way  by  other  peoples  in  less  enlightened  times.  Ancient 
Greece  reached  the  spiritual  level  expressed  in  the 
conclusion  of  the  Lord's  Prayer,  "  Thy  will  be  done." 
The  prayer  of  Socrates  was :  "  Grant  me  to  become 
noble  of  heart."  The  prayer  of  Epictetus  was :  "  Do 
with  me  what  thou  wilt:  my  will  is  thy  will:  I  appeal 
not  against  thy  judgments."  Is  this  not  the  inevitable 
deduction  from  an  ethical  monotheism?  Any  noble  be- 
liever in  a  good  god  would  look  at  prayer  in  this  way. 
It  is  not  surprising,  then,  that  the  more  philosophic 
adherents  of  early  Christianity  questioned  the  validity 
of  prayers  for  favors.  Take  away  the  support  of  sci- 
ence, with  its  healthy  scotching  of  superstition,  from 
the  mind  of  the  modern  Christian  and  I  doubt  whether 
he  would  rise  to  higher  ethical  levels  than  any  of  his 
forbears. 


56          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

But  the  growth  of  moral  idealism  in  religion  does 
not  involve  the  rational  overthrow  of  magic.  So  long 
as  all  the  events  in  the  world  are  not  assigned  directly 
to  God  as  the  sole  active  agent  at  work,  the  basis  of 
magic  remains.  Moral  idealism  condemns  only  black 
magic,  that  is,  an  immoral  use  of  magical  powers.  But 
moral  condemnation  is  not  a  rational  denial  of  the 
existence  of  magic.  Carried  to  its  logical  extreme, 
ethical  monotheism  could  discredit  magic  only  by  sub- 
stituting personal  for  impersonal  agency,  and  then 
proclaiming  a  monopoly  of  personal  agency.  It  is 
evident,  then,  that  science,  rather  than  religion,  has 
been  the  real  foe  of  magic,  because  it  grappled  with  it 
empirically,  and  in  a  detailed  fashion,  in  the  midst  of 
the  here  and  now  of  human  events.  Ethical  monothe- 
ism is  abstract,  deductive  and  dogmatic.  What  was 
necessary  was  a  critical  movement  at  once  concrete,  in- 
ductive and  empirical.  Religion  develops  only  the 
moral  reason  and  tends  to  leave  the  wider  reaches  of 
reason  an  uncultivated  field.  Hence  the  traitor  of 
superstition  was  never  far  from  it,  thunder  as  the 
preacher  would  from  the  pulpit.  Victory  over  dark- 
ness requires  the  spread  of  light  into  every  nook  and 
cranny  of  the  human  soul. 

The  age-long  conflict  has  passed  its  crisis.  Yet  all 
too  few  willingly  give  their  whole-hearted  allegiance  to 
the  ideals  and  methods  of  science.  The  struggle  up- 
ward from  primitive  ignorance  and  superstition  to  the 
conception  of  slow-working  impersonal  agency  has  been 
toilsome  and  tiring,  and  the  germs  of  sullen  revolt  are 
in  more  breasts  than  we  often  suppose.  Man's  hold  on 
the  good  is  frail;  let  us  seek  to  strengthen  it  and  to 
widen  its  grasp.  Laudation  of  the  practical  applica- 


MAGIC  AND  RITUAL  57 

tions  of  science  is  not  enough.  All  are  ready  to  be 
healed  and  to  be  made  the  masters  of  nature.  Too  few 
are  willing  to  accept  the  implications  of  natural  science 
and  press  on  toward  a  philosophy  conflicting  with  the 
ideas  of  the  universe  cherished  by  their  fathers. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

LET  us  now  pass  from  the  study  of  the  general  features 
of  the  ancient  outlook  upon  nature  to  a  study  of  the 
Christian  view  of  the  world.  Is  the  Christian  view  of 
the  world  inseparably  bound  up  with  this  ancient  out- 
look, or  can  it  be  purged  of  it?  Is  the  moral  fervor 
and  idealism  of  Christianity  its  essential  and  permanent 
contribution,  a  contribution  to  a  rational  appreciation 
of  human  life?  Probing  still  deeper,  let  us  not  be 
afraid  to  ask  ourselves  whether  the  surgery  which  this 
thesis  implies  does  not  involve  the  daring  of  a  break 
with  theism  as  only  a  developed  form  of  primitive  ani- 
mism? In  ethical  monotheism,  may  not  the  monotheism 
be  the  protecting  envelope  from  which  the  butterfly  has 
already  flown? 

The  part  played  by  Christianity  in  the  development 
of  Western  civilization  and  its  position  as  chief  repre- 
sentative of  the  religious  interpretation  of  the  universe 
makes  our  selection  of  it  for  study  natural.  To  iden- 
tify traditional  religion  with  a  low  stage  of  its  develop- 
ment, in  which  it  is  inextricably  bound  up  with  crude 
myth  and  ritualistic  magic,  is  not  a  fair  procedure.  We 
must  take  theology  at  its  best  and  place  it  over  against 
science  and  philosophy  before  we  can  rightly  judge  it. 
Only  then  can  we  be  certain  whether  it  stands  for  any- 
thing vital,  significant  and  true.  For  the  Western 

58 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY        59 

world,  at  least,  Christian  theology  is  generally  acknowl- 
edged to  represent  the  high-water  mark  of  theology. 
If  it  is  intrinsically  inadequate  and  untrue  to  modern 
experience,  the  only  course  open  to  a  morally  and  intel- 
lectually courageous  man  is  to  resign  it  as  a  view  out- 
grown. No  matter  how  much  pain  may  arise  from  a 
break  with  old  associations  and  from  the  relinquishment 
of  false  hopes,  intellectual  morality  permits  only  one 
course.  It  may  be  that  social  morality  will  gain  new 
life  when  the  old  forms  are  broken,  for  the  letter  kill- 
eth.  I  mean  that  Christian  ethics  will  operate  more 
freely  and  creatively  in  the  world  when  it  is  given  an 
entirely  humanistic  setting.  In  dreaming  of  a  super- 
mundane god,  man  has  only  too  often  forgotten  his 
fellow  man.  In  yearning  for  the  coming  of  the  divine 
kingdom,  he  has  allowed  his  hands  and  feet  to  be  idle, 
or  has  even  stepped  unheeding  over  the  prostrate  forms 
of  men  and  children  broken  in  the  mart.  To  remove 
theology  from  Christianity  is  to  make  the  kingdom  of 
this  world. 

The  content  of  Christianity  cannot  be  separated 
from  its  origin.  To  do  so  is  to  open  the  door  to  private 
interpretations  of  all  sorts  and  to  facilitate  duplicity 
and  self-deception.  Christianity  is  an  historical  fact, 
and  has  meant  various  pretty  definite  things.  If  we 
have  outgrown  certain  of  these  things  and  re-inter- 
preted others  in  a  fundamental  way,  we  are  not  making 
for  clearness  of  thought  by  trying  to  read  our  own  out- 
look into  the  past.  Continuity  of  a  spiritual  kind  there 
has  been,  but  there  is  also  newness  of  a  basic  import. 
The  knowledge  and  atmosphere  which  confront  it  to- 
day are  vastly  different  from  the  theosophy  in  which  it 
was  born  and  nourished. 


60          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

I  think  we  all  feel  that  Christianity  stood  for  an 
ethical  stimulus  of  a  very  fruitful  sort  whose  effect  can 
hardly  be  overestimated.  Yet,  if  we  wish  to  gain  a 
proper  perspective,  we  must  not  neglect  to  put  in  the 
other  balance  the  tendency  to  dogmatism  and  the  perse- 
cuting zeal  which  accompanied  it.  There  have  been 
other  than  Christian  martyrs.  Something  was  faulty 
with  a  movement  which  contained  so  much  obscurantism 
and  bigotry.  There  was  not  enough  of  sweet  reason 
in  its  composition,  and  too  much  of  the  old  terrors  which 
accompanied  primitive  ignorance  and  cruelty.  It 
needed  a  saner  and  more  wholesome  perspective  and 
more  trust  in  human  reason.  For  instance,  the  differ- 
ences between  the  various  sects,  which  have  sprung  up 
from  period  to  period  with  such  clamor  and  death- 
defying  energy,  have  been  differences  of  stress  and  of 
formulation  whose  importance  was  grossly  exagger- 
ated. To  the  modern  student  nothing  is  more  tragic 
and  pitiful  than  this  zeal  of  ignorance.  So  much  to 
be  done  in  the  world  to  make  it  sweeter  and  more  beau- 
tiful and  more  livable,  so  much  need  for  sanity  and 
charity ;  and  yet  so  much  of  human  energy  wasted  and, 
more  than  wasted,  turned  to  evil  results.  The  only 
way  to  overcome  this  sectarian  mal-adjustment  is  to 
know  the  past  as  it  was  and  to  cherish  no  distorting 
and  blinding  illusions  in  regard  to  it.  Man  is  so  prone 
to  see  the  golden  age  in  the  past  that  it  is  necessary 
to  have  a  searchlight  directed  upon  it.  An  historical 
approach  is  such  a  searchlight. 

There  is  another  psychological  advantage  in  an  his- 
torical approach.  The  reason  is  often  unconsciously 
bound  by  the  authority  of  a  supposed  past.  For  the 
philosopher  with  his  confidence  in  experimental  reason, 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY        61 

perhaps,  this  inhibition  does  not  exist ;  but  even  people 
who  have  every  inclination  to  bring  their  total  experi- 
ence to  bear,  in  a  free  way,  upon  doctrines  and  beliefs 
are  restrained  by  what  they  have  been  taught,  and 
lose  audacity.  The  spirit  of  acquiescence  is  always 
at  work  in  the  world,  and  nothing  reenforces  this 
spirit  more  powerfully  than  a  traditionally-accepted 
book  of  sacred  writings.  Confronted  by  these  with 
their  unhesitating  affirmations  and  claims,  the  minds 
of  the  majority  are  intimidated,  and  such  reflections 
as  they  allow  themselves  work  within  the  prescribed 
boundaries  or  wander  little  beyond  them.  Nothing  is 
better  suited  to  unbind  the  mind  and  to  lead  it  to  think 
boldly  than  a  study  of  origins.  The  individual  gains 
perspective  as  he  sees  ideas  and  sentiments  rise  and  fall 
and  give  way  to  others.  He  can  no  longer  be  intimi- 
dated by  the  shadow  of  a  compact  and  seemingly  im- 
pregnable tradition.  We  must  remember,  however, 
that  such  an  historical  and  comparative  approach  can, 
at  its  best,  only  break  up  the  mythical  simplicity  of  a 
sentimentalized  past  and  reveal  the  complexity  of  the 
many-channeled  forces  at  work;  it  cannot  prove  any 
particular  doctrine.  The  creation  must  come  from  the 
spirit  of  the  present,  as  it  carries  the  stimulus  of  the 
past  and  adds  to  it  its  own  energies. 

All  developed  religions  have  their  sacred  books. 
Until  the  translation  of  the  Sacred  Books  of  the  East 
was  undertaken  in  the  latter  part  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury, few  people  realized  how  many  such  books  there 
were.  And  we  Americans  have  been  the  unwilling  wit- 
nesses of  the  appearance  of  two  other  collections  of 
writings  making  the  same  claims,  The  Book  of  Mormon 
and  Science  and  Health.  Now  such  sacred  books  are  re- 


62          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

garded  as  revelations  which  could  not  be  obtained  ex- 
cept by  a  mysterious  contact  with  divine  things.  And 
the  religious  faith  which  has  been  called  forth  and 
directed  by  a  teaching  founded  on  the  scripture  turns 
back  its  own  warmth  upon  its  source.  Nothing  is  more 
natural  than  this  interaction  between  a  living  faith  and 
the  writings  which  are  felt  to  be  its  guarantee.  Reli- 
gion is  notoriously  conservative  and  retrospective. 
Especially  is  this  true  of  religions  which  impute  to 
themselves  a  complete  and  final  source  of  revelation  in 
the  past.  Faith  and  book  are  associated  in  the  mind 
so  intimately  that  they  lose  their  separateness.  To 
doubt  one  is  like  doubting  the  other.  Thus  faith  forms 
an  emotional  envelope  which  protects  the  literature, 
while  the  concrete  detail  of  the  literature  reacts  upon 
the  mind  to  strengthen  the  faith.  It  is  not  strange, 
therefore,  that  the  cult  of  the  book  is  a  phenomenon 
which  is  universal  in  the  advanced  religions.  The  Mo- 
hammedan believes  in  the  verbal  inspiration  of  the 
Koran  just  as  fully  as  does  the  Jew  in  the  divine  origin 
of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  Christian  in  the  inspira- 
tion of  the  accepted  canon  called  the  Bible.  Nor  are 
these  the  only  examples.  But  this  psychological  circle 
is  a  vicious  one.  It  involves  the  substitution  of  a  sub- 
jective support  to  claims  and  theories  which  require 
the  test  of  human  experience  as  a  whole.  But  just 
because  science  is  this  coordination  of  the  whole  range 
of  experience,  there  inevitably  arises  that  conflict  be- 
tween science  and  theology  of  which  we  have  heard  so 
much  during  the  last  few  decades.  It  is  a  conflict  be- 
tween a  part  of  experience,  interpreted  too  hastily,  and 
the  rationalized  whole. 

Science  arose  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance  as  a 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY        63 

consequence  of  man's  awakened  curiosity.  Its  first 
conquests  were  in  the  fields  of  astronomy  and  physics. 
These  were  of  such  a  striking  character  that  they  gave 
this  comparatively  new  movement  a  prestige  which 
stood  it  in  good  stead  in  time  of  trouble.  Gradually, 
an  assured  technic  was  developed,  and  inductive  tests 
made  of  every  hypothesis  which  suggested  itself.  For 
a  considerable  time,  science  was  confined  pretty  defi- 
nitely to  the  physical  world;  but  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  mental  habits  encouraged  would  sooner  or  later 
extend  themselves  to  other  fields.  While  there  were 
many  tentative  applications  of  the  methods  and  ideals 
of  inductive  science  to  the  field  of  history  in  the  eight- 
eenth century,  it  was  not  until  the  nineteenth  century 
that  the  science  of  history  was  fully  developed.  Our 
conception  of  the  past  has  become  progressively  deeper 
and  truer.  Romanticism  has  been  replaced  by  a  real- 
ism which  calls  anthropology,  archaeology,  and  modern 
psychology  to  its  aid.  We  wish  to  see  the  men  of  the 
past  as  they  actually  were;  and  we  are  quite  aware 
that  we  know  more  about  the  world  than  they  did. 

In  the  domain  of  biblical  literature  and  comparative 
religions,  the  method  of  science  was  slow  of  applica- 
tion. There  was  a  tremendous  inertia  to  overcome, 
and  a  strong  spirit  of  positive  antagonism  to  resist. 
The  whole  system  of  hopes  and  fears,  sanctions  and 
taboos,  which  the  ancient  view  of  the  world  had  fostered 
within  the  human  breast  cried  out  against  the  sacrilege 
of  rational  investigation.  Humanity  hugs  illusion 
more  fondly  than  it  does  truth  because  it  is  more  famil- 
iar with  it.  For  a  while,  all  that  orthodoxy  had  to 
contend  with  was  a  rationalism  of  a  skeptical  cast 
which  had  scarcely  a  better  historical  outlook  at  its 


64          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

command  than  had  its  opponent.  It  could  assert  that 
these  stories  and  beliefs  handed  down  from  the  past 
could  not  be  true  because  they  conflicted  with  our  ex- 
perience; but  it  could  not  explain  why  people  had 
originated  these  ideas  and  why  they  had  believed  in 
them  so  implicitly.  In  other  words,  it  could  not  let 
the  past  explain  itself  in  such  a  natural  way  that  it 
would  disprove  its  own  beliefs.  It  is  this  that  modern 
research  has  done  so  thoroughly  that  there  is  scarce 
need  for  the  appeal  to  the  constructive  sciences  which 
skeptical  rationalism  makes.  The  battle  is  no  longer 
a  drawn  one  so  far  as  the  intellect  is  concerned.  It  is 
merely  a  question  of  how  long  it  will  take  before  the 
victory  will  be  recognized  and  proclaimed  by  all  edu- 
cated people. 

As  the  evolutionary  point  of  view  forced  its  way 
into  recognition,  scholars  became  aware  of  the  real 
nature  of  myth  and  legend;  they  realized  that  beliefs 
of  this  sort  are  products  of  a  creative  group-conscious- 
ness saturated  with  a  view  of  the  world  which  we  have 
slowly  outgrown;  they  sensed  the  mental  complexity 
of  the  past  and  became  suspicious  of  the  nai've  assump- 
tion that  religions  were  formed  in  a  generation  by  the 
sheer  authority  of  a  single  man  or  of  a  small  group  of 
men.  The  first  clear  statement  of  this  changed  point 
of  view  was  the  work  of  David  Friedrich  Strauss  in  his 
famous  Life  of  Jesus.  Strauss  developed  the  idea  that 
much  of  religious  literature  consists  of  myths  and  dog- 
mas, not  created  out  of  whole  cloth  by  would-be  de- 
ceivers, but  woven  by  the  stimulated  fancy  of  groups 
working  in  the  atmosphere  of  traditions  and  attitudes 
which  the  most  intense  research,  alone,  can  make  living 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY        65 

to  the  scholar.  There  can  be  little  doubt  that  this 
standpoint  is  essentially  correct.  Before  it  could  be 
applied  satisfactorily,  however,  painstaking  investiga- 
tion of  the  literature  and  recorded  customs  of  the  peo- 
ple of  the  Mediterranean  basin  had  to  be  carried 
through.  Only  by  now  has  this  task  been  so  far 
achieved  that  the  main  features  of  the  Graeco-Syrian- 
Palestinian-Egyptian  world  are  open  to  a  sympathetic 
inspection.  No  one  who  has  not  done  some  work  in 
this  field  at  first  or  second  hand  can  realize  the  difficul- 
ties which  confronted  investigators.  Fragments  found 
here  and  there  in  the  writings  of  the  Church  Fathers, 
the  teachings  of  the  Jews  of  Alexandria,  the  apocalyp- 
tic literature  discovered  in  remote  places,  inscriptions 
unearthed  here  and  there,  all  were  carefully  studied 
and  compared  and  forced  to  yield  their  quota  of  infor- 
mation. 

It  is  a  psychological  principle  which  must  always  be 
reckoned  with  that  the  less  an  untrained  individual 
knows  about  the  past,  the  more  certain  of  the  correct- 
ness of  his  assumed  knowledge  he  is  prone  to  be.  For 
example,  the  American  who  has  read  one  or  more  of 
the  over-simplified  text-books  dealing  with  the  history 
of  his  country,  which  are  used  in  the  schools,  has  a 
clear-cut  picture  of  the  various  events,  knows  exactly 
how  they  occurred  and  who  was  in  the  right.  The  uni- 
versity teacher,  on  the  other  hand,  has  before  him  a 
wealth  of  conflicting  data  from  which  he  must  painfully 
and  tentatively  construct  a  picture  of  the  tendencies  at 
work  at  different  periods.  He  must  test  the  genuine- 
ness of  his  sources,  weigh  the  prejudices  of  the  writer, 
and  decide  whether  he  was  in  a  position  to  know  exactly 


66          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

what  was  happening.  Consequently,  he  will  speak  in  a 
qualified  language  where  the  average  citizen  will  deliver 
himself  of  emphatic  assertions. 

Yet  the  investigator  of  American  history  is  possessed 
of  an  abundance  of  material  and  deals  with  a  time  for 
which  printing  existed.  The  language  in  which  these 
documents  are  written  is  his  own  or  else  a  well-known  one. 
The  student  of  comparative  religions  has  none  of  these 
advantages.  For  the  ancient  world,  the  inscriptions  are 
archaic  and  condensed.  In  the  case  of  the  biblical  lit- 
erature, he  may  be  dealing  with  accounts  edited  from 
older  manuscripts  in  other  languages.  These  narratives 
conflict  among  themselves  and  contain  surprisingly  little 
information  on  important  points.  Hence,  the  investi- 
gator is  almost  overwhelmed  by  the  difficulty  of  his  task 
and  the  fewness  of  his  certain  results.  The  ordinary 
confessing  Christian,  on  the  contrary,  is  blissfully  una- 
ware of  these  problems.  He  opens  his  English  transla- 
tion and  reads  the  familiar  words  in  the  light  of  inher- 
ited dogmas  which  blind  his  eyes  to  all  contradictions 
and  discrepancies.  The  truth  is,  that  he  is  mentally 
unprepared  to  compare  passages  and  to  see  problems 
which  stare  the  trained  man  in  the  face.  He  reads  sub- 
jectively for  edification.  The  ecclesiastical  atmosphere 
is  such  that  his  spiritual  advisors  have  either  desired  to 
keep  modern  critical  work  from  his  notice,  or  have  been 
afraid  to  arouse  the  bigotry  of  their  keepers,  or  have 
themselves  lacked  a  modern  education.  The  conse- 
quence is  that  the  average  Christian  has  the  most  naive 
notions  in  regard  to  the  authorship  and  authenticity 
of  the  gospels  and  of  the  real  meaning  of  many  of  the 
verses.  Palestine  is  conceived  in  terms  of  the  color- 
prints  which  illustrate  his  bible,  while  the  mental  atmos- 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY        67 

phere  of  the  Year  One  is  that  of  the  present  day  in 
America  with,  perhaps,  an  exotic  touch  here  and  there. 

Let  us  glance  over  some  of  the  facts  which  investiga- 
tion is  making  ever  clearer  and  which  are  not  as  gen- 
erally known  as  they  deserve  to  be.  What  is  said  here 
should  be  read  with  remembrance  of  the  results  of  the 
previous  chapters.  Such  a  bird's  eye  view  of  the 
forces  at  work  in  later  Hellenistic  and  Roman  times  will 
be  the  best  preparation  for  a  sane  conception  of  the 
origin  and  trend  of  Christianity. 

In  Tarsus,  a  Greek  city  of  Cilicia,  Paul,  or  Saul,  was 
born  and  educated.  Now  Tarsus  was,  after  Alexan- 
dria, the  chief  seat  of  late  Greek  philosophy  in  the 
near-orient.  Many  of  the  more  noted  Stoic  thinkers 
and  teachers  of  the  day  came  from  Cilicia  and  had  Sem- 
itic blood  in  their  veins.  Athenodorus,  the  teacher  of 
Cicero  and  Augustus,  came  from  Tarsus,  itself;  and  it 
is  said  that  his  grateful  and  admiring  fellow  citizens 
made  him  a  hero  upon  his  death  and  annually  cele- 
brated him  in  a  memorial  feast,  a  procedure  very  char- 
acteristic of  the  age.  There  is  the  strongest  evidence 
in  Paul's  epistles  that  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the 
doctrines  of  Stoicism.  The  larger  intellectual  world 
of  Philo  of  Alexandria  and  Seneca  of  the  Imperial  City 
lies  behind  these  epistles.  The  Hellenistic  Jew  of  the 
Dispersion  differed  widely  from  the  Jew  of  Palestine, 
no  matter  how  desirous  he  might  be  to  identify  himself 
with  the  worship  at  the  Temple. 

But  Greek  philosophy  was  not  the  only  element  with 
which  the  inhabitant  of  Tarsus  would  come  in  contact. 
When  Paul  speaks  of  mysteries,  he  is  referring  to  the 
various  secret  cults  which  permeated  the  Roman  world. 
How  few  Christians  are  aware  that  the  ancient  world 


68          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

was,  at  this  time,  in  a  religious  ferment  almost  with- 
out parallel.  The  Greek  civilization  had  lost  its  nerve. 
It  had  shot  its  bolt  and  been  overwhelmed  by  auto- 
cratic powers  and  sheer  barbarism.  The  conditions  of 
a  progressive  and  broadly  based  civilization  had  not 
yet  been  achieved.  "  Any  one  who  turns  from  the 
great  writers  of  classical  Athens,  say  Sophocles  or 
Aristotle,"  writes  Gilbert  Murray,  "  to  those  of  the 
Christian  era  must  be  conscious  of  a  great  difference 
in  tone.  There  is  a  change  in  the  whole  relation  of  the 
writer  to  the  world  about  him.  The  new  quality  is  not 
specifically  Christian:  it  is  just  as  marked  in  the  Gnos- 
tics and  Mithra-worshipers  as  in  the  Gospels  and  the 
Apocalypse,  in  Julian  and  Plotinus  as  in  Gregory  and 
Jerome.  It  is  hard  to  describe.  It  is  a  rise  of  asceti- 
cism, of  mysticism,  in  a  sense,  of  pessimism;  a  loss  of 
self-confidence,  of  hope  in  this  life  and  of  faith  m  nor- 
mal human  effort;  a  despair  of  patient  inquiry,  a  cry 
for  infallible  revelation;  an  indifference  to  the  welfare 
of  the  state ;  a  conversion  of  the  soul  to  God.  It  is  an 
atmosphere  in  which  the  aim  of  the  good  man  is  not  so 
much  to  live  justly,  to  help  the  society  to  which  he 
belongs  and  enjoy  the  esteem  of  his  fellow  creatures ; 
but  rather,  by  means  of  a  burning  faith,  by  contempt 
for  the  world  and  its  standards,  by  ecstasy,  suffering 
and  martyrdom,  to  be  granted  pardon  for  his  unspeak- 
able unworthiness,  his  immeasurable  sins.  There  is  an 
intensifying  of  certain  spiritual  emotions ;  an  increase 
of  sensitiveness,  a  failure  of  nerve."  It  was  in  such  a 
state  of  the  social  mind  that  Christianity  had  its  birth. 
It  was,  as  we  have  before  pointed  out,  one  of  many  com- 
peting for  dominance. 

These    competing   religions   had   much   in    common, 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY        69 

though  it  was  the  advantage  of  Christianity  to  have  in- 
herited the  ethical  monotheism  of  the  prophets.  Upon 
Paul,  the  Hellenist  and  Jew  of  the  dispersion,  was 
focussed  this  august  tradition  along  with  traditions  of 
a  more  mystical  character.  Syria  had  been  the  home 
of  certain  mysteries  from  an  early  day,  for  we  read  in 
the  Old  Testament  of  women  mourning  the  death  of 
Tammuz,  the  god  of  vegetation  who  dies  and  is  born 
again.  Now  Adonis  or  Attis  was  the  corresponding 
god  of  Phrygia,  and  all  people  of  Syria  were  well  ac- 
quainted with  the  cult  which  showed  the  mother-goddess 
mourning  for  her  son.  But  these  more  primitive  rites 
were  being  displaced  by  a  more  developed  and  ethical 
form  called  Mithraism.  I  well  remember  my  surprise 
when,  visiting  one  of  the  older  churches  at  Rome,  I  was 
shown  the  earlier  church  beneath  and  told  that,  be- 
neath that  again,  a  church  dedicated  to  Mithra  had 
been  discovered.  Now  Tarsus  was  one  of  the  chief 
seats  of  Mithraism,  and  it  is  practically  certain  that 
Paul  was  acquainted  with  its  main  rituals  and  beliefs. 
Let  us  try  to  realize  the  importance  of  this  fact. 

Mithraism  had  an  initiatory  service  in  which  the 
proselytes  were  admitted  into  the  faith.  The  liturgy 
of  this  service  is  still  extant  and  we  know  that  it  repre- 
sented a  mystical  dying  and  rebirth  in  which  the  guilt 
of  the  old  life  is  removed  and  a  new  immortal  life  is 
created  through  the  spirit.  The  initiates  spoke  of 
themselves  as  reborn  for  eternity.  "  So  striking," 
writes  Pfleiderer  the  German  critic,  "  is  the  connection 
of  these  ideas  with  Paul's  teaching  of  Christian  baptism 
as  a  community  of  death  and  resurrection  with  Christ 
(Romans  6)  that  the  thought  of  historical  relation  be- 
tween the  two  cannot  be  evaded.  .  Mithraism  also 


70          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

had  a  sacrament  corresponding  to  the  Christian  eucha- 
rist  at  which  the  sanctified  bread  and  a  cup  of  water  or 
even  wine  served  as  mystic  symbols  of  the  distribution 
of  the  divine  life  to  Mithra-believers." 

When  we  bear  in  mind  how  little  importance  Paul  at- 
tached to  the  actual  life  and  ethical  teaching  of  Jesus, 
we  are  not  surprised  at  the  frequent  suggestion  that 
Paul  was  the  real  founder  of  both  liturgical  and  theo- 
logical Christianity.  He  did  not  create  this  liturgy 
but  found  it  to  hand.  The  early  church  followed  this 
natural  impulse  and  added  to  the  simpler  inherited  rites. 
Into  the  psychology  of  Paul's  conception  of  the  Christ 
it  is  difficult  to  enter.  He  was  probably  an  enthusiast 
with  the  tendency  to  exalted  moods  peculiar  to  epilep- 
tics and  yet  with  high  mental  ability.  He  felt  himself 
inspired.  He  gives  us  to  understand  that  he  was  sub- 
ject to  visions,  and  it  is  well  known  that  religious  excite- 
ment is  capable  of  welding  together  the  myriad  sugges- 
tions which  play  upon  the  self.  We  can  comprehend 
the  work  of  Paul,  one  of  the  main  founders  of  Chris- 
tianity, only  when  we  see  him  as  the  mystical  interpreter 
weaving  the  Jewish  traditions  of  the  soberer  type,  the 
apocalyptic  outlook  of  such  books  as  Daniel  and  Ezra, 
the  mystery  cults  of  the  Hellenistic  world  and  the  theo- 
ries of  the  Stoic  philosophy  into  one  whole,  dominantly 
supernaturalistic.  Scholars  will  continue  to  differ  in 
regard  to  the  comparative  proportions  of  the  ingre- 
dients he  fused  together,  but  few  will  gainsay  that 
Paul's  teaching  is  a  product  of  many  sources.  In  this 
connection  a  very  significant  fact  should  be  noted:  al- 
though the  Pauline  epistles  are  the  earliest  records  of 
Christianity,  "  aside  from  the  crucifixion,  not  a  single 
fact  in  the  life  of  Jesus  can  be  gleaned  from  these 


THE  ORIGINS  OF  CHRISTIANITY        71 

epistles,  nor  do  they  record  a  single  saying  of  Jesus." 
We  shall  next  pass  to  a  brief  study  of  the  Jesus  of 
the  synoptic  gospels,  the  figure  which  has  become  en- 
deared to  humanity  and  with  which  the  Western  world 
has  associated  its  noblest  sentiments.  But  even  the 
present  study  of  some  of  the  more  mystical  elements 
in  Christianity  must  have  persuaded  the  reader  that  we 
have  in  this  movement  the  focussing  of  the  complex  life 
of  ancient  times.  The  circle  of  ideas  passionately  held 
by  the  members  of  the  church  was  not  created  by  any 
one  man  or  group  of  men.  It  was  the  flowering  out  of 
primitive  ideas  and  ethical  aspirations.  Moral  ideal- 
ism goes  hand  in  hand  with  cosmological  myth.  We 
who  have  regained  the  nerve  which  that  age  had  lost 
may  have  the  gift  and  high  adventure  of  separating 
moral  truth  from  theological  illusion. 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH 

OF  recent  years  a  strong  reaction  against  the  Pauline 
interpretation  of  Christianity  —  or  shall  we  say  the 
Pauline  type  of  Christianity  ?  —  has  set  in.  We  have 
so  completely  outgrown  the  primitive  notions  of  sacri- 
fice, and  the  Jewish  belief  in  the  necessity  of  an  atone- 
ment is  so  contrary  to  our  idea  of  God,  that  Paul's  rab- 
binical theology  does  not  strike  a  sympathetic  chord. 
After  all  is  said,  we  are  descendants  in  the  spirit  of 
those  gentiles  for  whom  Paul's  message  was  nonsense. 
Intellectually,  we  are  the  sons  of  Plato  and  Aristotle, 
of  Archimedes  and  Justinian.  During  the  Middle  Ages, 
the  ideas  of  the  period  of  the  Graeco-Roman  decline 
were  mingled  with  the  social  ideas  of  feudalism.  To- 
day, science  and  philosophy  have  lifted  us  back  to  the 
serener  heights  of  classic  times,  and  bid  fair  to  surpass 
that  glorious  period  in  solid  construction  if  not  in  deli- 
cacy of  inspiration.  The  result  is,  that  the  social  mind 
is  dropping  those  elements  from  Christianity  which  do 
not  harmonize  with  our  moral  and  intellectual  temper. 
Now,  the  synoptic  gospels  are  of  a  nature  to  lend 
themselves  to  this  shifting  of  interest  from  the  theo- 
logical and  the  sacrificial  to  the  more  human  and  ethi- 
cal. They  present  an  idealized  picture  of  Jesus  Christ 
after  the  flesh,  whereas  Paul  preaches  only  the  second 
Adam,  Jesus  Christ  after  the  spirit.  Paul  was  inter- 

72 


THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH  73 

ested  in  the  world  to  come  and  the  heavenly  world  above 
the  clouds  where  sit  the  aeons,  the  principalities,  and  the 
powers.  We  are  interested  chiefly  in  the  world  here 
and  now,  in  social  justice  and  democratic  fellowship. 
As  humanitarianism  became  aggressive,  Christianity  re- 
flected the  change.  Is  there  any  reason  to  suppose  that 
its  theological  envelope  will  be  able  to  place  a  boundary 
to  the  extent  of  this  change?  The  real  forces  at  work 
are  those  of  to-day,  those  of  our  own  spirit  and  mind. 
Only  for  a  time  will  they  seek  to  find  themselves  in  the 
past.  Only  while  they  are  gathering  force  and  confi- 
dence will  they  masquerade  as  a  mere  revival  of  a  truer 
primitive  Christianity. 

It  is  extremely  suggestive  that  the  more  democratic 
movements  within  Christianity  have  always  stressed  the 
kindlier,  more  human,  and  more  homely  phases  of  the 
bible.  The  followers  of  St.  Francis  of  Assisi  were,  at 
first,  teachers  of  humility  and  brotherly  love;  and 
Francis,  himself,  modeled  his  life  after  that  of  Jesus 
as  he  conceived  him.  The  disciples  of  Wycliffe  made 
their  home  among  the  peasantry  and  artisans  of  Medi- 
aeval England.  John  Ball  is  a  good  interpreter  to  us 
of  the  social  outlook  they  nourished.  It  appears  that 
they  thought  of  Jesus  as  like  one  of  themselves,  read 
his  life  in  terms  of  their  own  pressing  problems.  Piet- 
ism and  methodism  have  always  inclined  toward  the 
gospel  Jesus  in  preference  to  the  Pauline  Christ;  but 
their  social  outlook  was  far  too  negative  and  passive. 
Democracy  must  be  aggressive,  non-mystical,  trium- 
phant. It  must  exalt  reason  while  not  forgetting  ten- 
derness. With  the  growth  of  modern  democracy  of  a 
socialistic  kind,  Jesus  the  Carpenter  with  his  kindly 
word  for  the  poor  and  downtrodden  and  his  scorn  for 


74          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

the  haughty  and  rich  has  become  the  symbol  and  sign 
of  a  new  social  ethics.  It  is  evident  that  religion  is 
not  independent  of  the  social  temper  of  an  age.  Re- 
ligion points  to  the  seat  of  power  as  a  compass  points  to 
the  pole.  When  man's  sore  need  made  him  cry  out  for 
mercy  and  succor  in  the  primitive  days,  his  ignorant 
helplessness  inevitably  peopled  nature  with  gods  of  fer- 
tility. Illusion  and  need  created  the  gods  of  myth  and 
ritual.  Remove  this  setting  of  ignorance  and  illusion, 
and  put  in  its  place  a  sense  of  power,  and  need  will  point 
to  the  proper  use  of  that  power.  Justice  and  mercy 
and  reason,  used  sociaUy  for  a  social  purpose,  will 
surely  become  the  religion  of  an  intelligent  democracy. 
In  the  older  forms  of  religion,  man  was  a  petitioner  hold- 
ing out  helpless  hands  of  prayer ;  in  the  religion  to  come, 
man  will  be  a  creator  bravely  taking  his  destiny  into  his 
own  hands.  What  a  reversal !  Yet  it  is  no  greater 
than  the  contrast  between  the  primitive  world  we  have 
been  studying,  with  its  mana  and  taboos  and  magic, 
and  the  modern  world  with  its  knowledge  of  chemistry 
and  electricity  and  its  deep  probing  into  the  very  soul 
of  man. 

But  we  must  return  to  the  explanation  of  the  popu- 
lar tendency  to  exalt  the  man  Jesus  over  the  Pauline 
Christ.  Is  the  explanation  far  to  seek?  Theology  of 
a  recondite  character  has  always  been  the  expression  of 
reflection  and  leisure.  The  religion  of  the  masses  has 
always  been,  on  the  contrary,  in  terms  of  pictures  and 
emotions  connected  with  their  everyday  needs.  The 
rabbinical  concepts  of  Paul  were  foreign  to  their  ex- 
perience, while  the  philosophical  mysticism  of  John  was 
appreciated  only  by  a  few  who  felt  the  beauty  of  the 
language  and  the  strange  charm  of  its  figures  of  speech. 


THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH  75 

To  the  common  people  Jesus  was  a  loving  friend  who 
comforted  them  in  their  sorrows,  and  the  witness  to  a 
heaven  in  which  all  tears  would  be  wiped  away.  Of 
course,  we  must  not  be  too  romantic  in  our  interpreta- 
tion of  the  outlook  of  the  masses.  These  sentiments 
often  attached  themselves  to  the  given  theology  with 
dogmatic  fierceness;  and  in  the  background  supersti- 
tious fears  were  only  too  apt  to  smolder.  But,  on  the 
whole,  it  is  not  false  to  say  that  the  gospel  story  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  with  its  simple  pathos  and  vivid  diction 
appealed  to  the  masses,  while  his  personality  met  their 
ideal  of  nobility  and  moral  grandeur.  Jesus,  the  man 
who  was  also  the  Son  of  God,  who  came  upon  earth  for 
them  and  for  some  reason  died  for  them,  affected  them 
as  nothing  else  could.  And  is  it  not  a  wonderful  con- 
ception? Yes ;  in  the  right  setting,  there  has  been  none 
grander  in  all  literature.  It  is  a  masterpiece  of  lyricized 
mythology.  But,  when  we  have  outlived  its  setting,  it 
can  affect  us  only  as  great  literary  masterpieces  do, 
when  we  consent  to  throw  ourselves  into  the  aesthetic 
attitude. 

The  pragmatic  and  aesthetic  qualities  of  a  story  do 
not  guarantee  its  historical  truth.  In  fact,  research 
has  shown  that  practically  all  the  most  charming  anec- 
dotes which  have  come  down  to  us  will  not  stand  critical 
examination.  The  historian  of  Christianity  is  well 
aware  of  this  situation.  The  general  movement  of  en- 
lightened religious  thought  from  the  more  mythical  ele- 
ment to  the  career  of  Jesus,  while  it  bears  witness  to  a 
more  wide-spread  interest  in  his  personality,  also  testi- 
fies to  a  growing  doubt  of  the  validity  of  the  theological 
constructions  which  have  been  woven  around  his  figure. 
We  wish  to  know,  if  possible,  exactly  what  he  thought 


76          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

and  taught.  Were  we  able  to  determine  this,  we  feel 
that  much  of  the  distorting  atmosphere  would  be  with- 
drawn. But  is  not  this,  itself,  one  of  those  deluding 
hopes  which  the  attitude  of  compromise  fosters?  Do 
we  not  know  in  our  heart  of  hearts  that  the  beliefs  of 
Jesus  reflected  the  beliefs  of  his  time,  just  as  the  be- 
liefs of  Kant  or  Luther  are  functions  of  the  ages  in 
which  they  lived?  But  we  have  here  an  hypothesis 
which  can  be  tested  by  historical  data.  Were  the 
views  of  Jesus  like  those  of  his  age  ?  Nothing  has  come 
out  more  clearly  than  just  this  fact. 

Let  us  see  what  has  resulted  from  this  close  study 
of  the  sources.  We  must  remember  that  books  were 
not  published  in  ancient  days  as  they  are  at  present. 
Manuscripts  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and  individuals 
added  to  them,  or  altered  them,  or  combined  them  as 
they  saw  fit.  Plagiarism  did  not  have  the  meaning  it 
has  now  when  authors  live  on  the  proceeds  of  the  sale 
of  their  books.  Besides,  it  was  quite  the  custom  to  at- 
tach names  to  manuscripts  at  pleasure  or  in  accordance 
with  tradition.  Our  modern  critical  attitude  had  not 
arisen  —  for  obvious  reasons.  Besides,  it  was  difficult 
to  secure  copies  of  manuscripts.  For  instance,  Papias, 
bishop  of  Hierapolis  in  Phrygia  toward  the  middle  of 
the  second  century,  believed  that  there  was  an  Aramaic 
gospel  according  to  Matthew,  but  he  was  unable  to  get 
a  glimpse  of  it  and  had  to  trust  to  the  oral  tradition 
of  his  time.  To  bring  this  situation  home :  suppose  we 
had  to  rely  on  the  oral  tradition  still  lingering  in  regard 
to  the  life  of  Washington,  how  certain  would  we  be  of 
its  authenticity?  Why,  there  are  already  myths  in 
regard  to  the  life  of  Mary  Baker  Eddy !  In  olden  days, 


THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH          77 

myths  sprang  up  like  mushrooms.  Only  too  many 
varieties  were  at  hand  to  choose  from. 

Scholars  are  pretty  certain  that  the  present  Matthew 
is  not  a  translation  of  an  Aramaic  original.  Moreover, 
the  present  Matthew  breaks  up  into  separate  parts 
conflicting  with  one  another  quite  extensively,  and  is 
full  of  insertions  of  a  comparatively  late  date.  Only 
after  the  gospel  has  been  radically  revised  are  we  likely 
to  be  near  an  old  tradition  of  the  life  and  deeds  of 
Jesus. 

While  we  are  on  the  topic  of  the  authenticity  of  the 
gospels,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  discuss  the  other 
synoptics  as  briefly  as  possible.  The  majority  of 
critics  regard  Mark  as  the  oldest  but  this  is  mere  guess- 
work when  all  is  said  and  done.  In  its  present  form  it 
is  briefer  than  the  others  and  this  fact  has  impressed 
many  students.  Besides,  it  does  not  contain  an  ac- 
count of  the  infancy  of  Jesus.  But  it,  itself,  is  evidently 
a  compilation  of  other  documents  since  it  repeats  the 
same  event  in  slightly  different  forms.  In  all  probabil- 
ity, it  was  written  in  Greek  for  a  Hellenistic  audience 
and  emphasizes  those  traditions  which  would  be  the 
most  likely  to  impress  its  readers.  It  is  not  known 
who  wrote  it  or  exactly  when  it  was  written. 

The  gospel  according  to  Luke  did  not  originally  make 
any  claim  to  have  been  written  by  Luke.  Scholars  are 
agreed  from  internal  evidence  that  it  could  not  have 
been  written  until  long  after  the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in 
70  A.  D.  The  author  of  Luke  was  acquainted  with  the 
Antiquities  of  Josephus  and  this  shows  that  he  must 
have  made  his  compilation  and  free  reworking  of  tradi- 
tions in  the  second  century. 


78          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

If,  then,  our  gospels  were  not  written  by  eye-wit- 
nesses, and  represent  the  beliefs  and  traditions  of  at 
least  the  next  half-century  after  the  death  of  Jesus,  to 
what  can  we  give  credence?  What  is  myth  and  legend 
and  what  is  historic  fact?  Can  we  find  a  clew  to  guide 
us? 

It  is  a  canon  among  historical  critics  to  regard  those 
passages  as  the  oldest  which  conflict  most  with  the  out- 
look of  the  later  centuries.  We  can  understand  why 
they  happen  to  be  there  but  there  would  be  no  good  rea- 
son for  their  later  creation  and  insertion.  Let  us  try 
to  determine  whither  this  canon  will  lead  us. 

All  scholars  agree  that  the  birth  stories  are  a  later 
addition.  They  are  a  product  of  Hellenistic  beliefs, 
perhaps  even  of  Hindoo  influences.  The  Virgin-Mother 
myth  was  very  common  in  ancient  times  and  the  whole 
machinery  of  the  story  was  undoubtedly  absorbed  from 
tales  widely  current  in  those  days.  For  instance,  the 
father  of  Plato,  the  Greek  philosopher,  was  warned  in  a 
dream  by  Apollo  so  that  Plato  was  virgin-born.  What 
can  we  think  of  the  intellectual  state  of  Churches  which 
excommunicate  ministers  who  have  the  decency  to  in- 
form their  congregation  what  disinterested  scholarship 
has  determined?  So  far  as  there  is  intellectual  dis- 
honesty or  incompetence  here,  it  will  bring  its  own  pun- 
ishment in  the  attitude  adopted  by  sincere  men  toward 
the  Churches.  The  best  we  can  say,  then,  is  that  there 
is  no  very  good  reason  to  doubt  that  Jesus  was  the  son 
of  a  carpenter,  by  the  name  of  Joseph,  and  his  wife, 
Mary.  He  was  not  the  only  child,  for  Mark  represents 
his  fellow  townsmen  as  saying :  "  Is  not  this  the  car- 
penter, the  son  of  Mary,  and  brother  of  James  and 
Joses  and  Judas  and  Simon?  And  are  not  his  sisters 


THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH  79 

here  with  us  ?  "  Quite  a  goodly  family,  you  see.  The 
Ebionite  Christians,  who  were  the  Christians  of  Pales- 
tine and  probably  had  the  safest  traditions  on  this 
point,  believed  that  Jesus  "  was  the  son  of  Joseph  and 
Mary  according  to  the  ordinary  course  of  human  gen- 
eration." His  kinsmen  were  the  leaders  of  the  Chris- 
tian community  for  several  generations.  But  there  is 
little  use  in  laboring  a  point  which  is  so  obvious. 

Of  his  early  life  we  know  practically  nothing.  He 
was  probably  not  trained  as  a  rabbi  but  worked  at  the 
trade  of  his  father.  We  may  assume  that  he  knew  how 
to  read  and  write,  since  an  opportunity  to  learn  was 
usually  offered  in  the  synagogue.  It  is  likely  that  his 
reading  was  largely  confined  to  the  religious  literature 
of  his  people,  especially  the  psalms  and  the  prophets. 
His  spirit  was  more  in  harmony  with  the  deep  ethical 
fervor  of  these  champions  of  righteousness  and  lovers 
of  justice  than  with  the  formal  prescriptions  of  the 
Law.  If  we  may  judge  from  the  general  tone  of  the 
traditions,  he  was  a  close  student  of  men  and  a  lover 
of  nature,  a  silent,  reflective  man  who  noted  the  events 
passing  around  him.  His  youth  passed  in  this  way 
without  any  overt  step  being  taken ;  and,  perhaps,  with- 
out any  clear  message  having  developed  in  his  mind. 
He  was  simply  one  of  the  dissatisfied  few  who  are  always 
to  be  found.  Now  and  then,  it  may  be,  he  spoke  pas- 
sionate words  against  the  evils  that  were  apparent  on 
every  hand,  quoted  the  prophets  in  their  outbursts 
against  similar  evils  and  subsided  into  a  brooding 
silence.  There  are  many  such  in  our  land  to-day,  sin- 
cere and  passionate  and  kindly  men  who  eat  their  heart 
out  witnessing  the  course  of  events. 

The  Jews  of  the  day  cherished  the  idea  that  a  Mes- 


80          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

sianic  kingdom  would  be  established.  Jesus  shared  in 
this  expectation ;  but  it  is  certain  that  he  thought  of  it 
less  as  a  restoration  of  the  Jewish  state  to  power  than 
a  change  in  the  position  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  In 
other  words,  he  infused  the  belief  with  a  finer  ethical 
meaning  more  in  accordance  with  his  concept  of  God 
and  his  sense  of  what  was  really  valuable  and  important. 
There  is  no  means  of  knowing  his  entire  attitude  to- 
ward this  popular  belief  in  a  supernatural  kingdom  to 
be  established  by  God  upon  earth,  but  he  undoubtedly 
retained  its  main  outlines.  He  was  a  child  of  his  age 
although  a  notably  sincere  and  high-minded  one. 

About  28  A.  D.  John  appeared  and  preached  in  the 
wilderness.  Jesus  went  to  hear  him  because  of  the 
natural  interest  he  aroused.  It  is  quite  probable  that 
he  was  baptized  by  John.  We  do  not  know  whether  he 
associated  himself  with  John  or  not.  At  any  rate 
John's  message  crystallized  his  own  ideas  and  he  felt 
called  upon  to  continue  his  mission.  He  did  not  pro- 
claim himself  as  the  Messiah  but  simply  preached  that 
the  kingdom  of  God  was  at  hand  and  that  men  were  to 
prepare  for  it.  This  preparation  was  of  an  ethical 
sort  and  largely  ascetic  in  character. 

Palestine  was  in  a  ferment  at  this  time  and  his  ap- 
pearance and  preaching  aroused  great  interest.  Like 
all  prophets  he  was  called  upon  to  heal  the  sick  and, 
accepting  the  customary  views  of  sickness,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  exorcise  the  evil  spirits  which  possessed  those 
who  were  brought  to  him.  I  do  not  see  how  he  could 
have  escaped  this  task.  What  part  accident  played  in 
giving  him  confidence  cannot  be  known,  but  it  was  prob- 
ably large.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  there  is 
a  ground  of  fact  for  these  stories  of  healing,  although 


THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH  81 

they  have  been  grossly  exaggerated  by  later  tradition 
when  he  was  viewed  as  divine.  We  must  always  remem- 
ber how  late  and  biased  our  sources  are. 

As  time  went  on,  he  gained  more  confidence  in  him- 
self. Since  he  was  human,  he  could  not  help  being 
moved  by  the  confidence  of  the  people.  He  felt  that  re- 
forms should  be  made ;  everywhere  was  poverty  and 
sickness  and  unhappiness.  Could  the  thought  help  com- 
ing to  him  that  perhaps  he  was  the  one  to  inaugurate 
the  kingdom  ?  The  idea  kept  coming  back,  forced  upon 
him  by  his  own  reflection  and  by  the  questions  and  as- 
sumptions of  his  disciples.  It  may  be  that  he  never 
made  up  his  mind  but  was  forced  by  the  course  of  events 
to  go  to  Jerusalem  where  his  career  ended  all  too  soon. 
Mankind  will  never  know  the  details  of  his  inner  life ; 
his  doubts,  hopes,  decisions,  indecisions  are  hidden  from 
us  in  an  obscurity  that  will  never  be  completely  lifted. 

His  preaching  became  more  revolutionary.  More 
and  more  he  set  himself  in  opposition  to  the  mechanical 
observance  of  the  law  and  the  fanatical  worship  of 
forms  and  days.  The  opposition  of  the  conservative 
members  of  priesthood  increased  in  bitterness.  Soon 
it  was  war  to  the  knife  between  this  new  prophet,  with 
his  disregard  for  the  law,  and  its  chosen  representatives. 
Thus  Jesus  had  drifted  into  a  position  which  he  had 
probably  not  anticipated  when  he  set  out  on  his  minis- 
try. But  this  is  always  the  way.  Mohammed  began 
as  a  reformer,  and  the  antagonism  of  the  keepers  of 
Caaba  led  to  his  aggressive  campaign ;  Luther  and 
Huss  and  Wycliffe  changed  their  attitude  and  their 
ideas  at  various  moments  in  their  career.  No  man's 
life  is  the  working  out  of  a  fixed  and  ready-made  plan. 
At  any  rate,  he  determined  to  go  to  Jerusalem  —  in  all 


82          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

likelihood,  as  Pfleiderer  suggests,  in  order  to  win  a  vic- 
tory over  the  hierarchy  and  to  realize  the  prophetic 
ideal  in  the  center  of  the  religious  life  of  the  Jewish  na- 
tion. The  people  received  him  enthusiastically  but  his 
opponents  were  too  strong  and  clever  for  him.  He 
feared  only  secret  assassination  while  they  induced  the 
Roman  power  to  intervene. 

The  story  draws  to  a  close.  In  the  garden  of  Geth- 
semane  Jesus  felt  the  possibility  of  a  tragic  end  to  his 
hopes  of  an  early  coming  of  the  Kingdom.  The  real 
situation  shines  clear  through  all  the  legend  which  a 
later  age  has  woven  around  it.  When  he  saw  himself 
surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  armed  men,  he  knew  that 
resistance  was  vain.  He  was  delivered  into  the  hands 
of  his  enemies.  Through  all  the  humiliation  and  pain 
of  those  days,  he  seems  to  have  hoped  that  his  God 
would  rescue  him.  It  was  only  on  the  cross  that  he 
finally  gave  up  hope.  The  heavens  were  dumb  as  they 
always  have  been  and  always  will  be. 

The  body  of  Jesus  was  probably  thrown  into  the 
common  pit  reserved  for  malefactors,  as  Abbe  Loisy 
suggests,  while  the  story  of  the  burial  by  Joseph  of 
Arimathea  grew  up  to  save  him  from  the  terrible  dis- 
honor of  such  a  last  resting-place.  The  rest  of  the 
traditional  narrative  is  unquestionably  mythical.  Paul 
speaks  of  him  as  buried  and  evidently  thinks  of  the  risen 
Jesus  as  an  incorruptible  or  spiritual  man.  Paul  did 
not  believe  in  a  bodily  resurrection.  The  visions  which 
led  to  a  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  were  ecstatic 
in  character.  We  must  remember  that  the  ancients 
were  far  less  critical  than  we  are  in  regard  to  dreams 
and  illusions  and  did  not  consider  a  return  to  life  in 
some  shadowy  form  as  very  unusual.  I  have  not  the 


THE  PROPHET  OF  NAZARETH  83 

slightest  difficulty  in  my  own  mind  in  accounting  for 
the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  Jesus  in  an  entirely 
natural  way.  Once  this  belief  arose  and  became  im- 
portant as  a  part  of  a  new  religion,  the  rise  of  legendary 
details  was  simply  inevitable. 

The  position  I  have  taken  is  relatively  conservative. 
Many  scholars  have  even  become  skeptical  whether  such 
a  person  as  Jesus  ever  lived.  We  cannot  be  certain  but 
it  seems  more  plausible  to  give  a  relative  credence  to  the 
older  strands  of  tradition  in  the  New  Testament.  That 
such  an  ethical  reformer  lived  who  believed  in  the  com- 
ing of  the  Messianic  kingdom,  that  he  was  embroiled 
with  the  priestly  class  and  was  done  to  death  by  them 
with  the  aid  of  the  Roman  governor  who  feared  a  sedi- 
tious outbreak,  that  his  disciples  after  his  death  came 
to  believe  in  his  resurrection  and  his  coming  Messiah- 
ship  upon  earth,  all  this  appears  to  me  more  than  prob- 
able. Human  life  is  a  fertile  field  for  tragedy.  The 
more  we  rid  the  narratives  of  their  fairy-story  accom- 
paniments and  see  Jesus,  not  as  a  god  who  foreknows 
his  human  life  and  plays  it  out  gravely  as  an  actor  who 
knows  his  role,  but  as  a  human  being  hurried  to  issues 
he  had  not  at  first  dreamed  of,  the  more  his  career  be- 
comes comprehensible.  Its  pathos  is  increased  by  this 
truer  perspective,  while  the  moral  grandeur  of  his  life 
gains  by  the  human  atmosphere  which  descends  upon 
it.  He  lived  his  life  sincerely  as  other  men  have  done 
and  did  not  dream  of  the  use  history  would  make  of  his 
name. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY 

CHRISTIANITY  did  not  arise  in  the  form  we  associate 
with  it.  The  followers  of  Jesus,  after  they  had  be- 
come convinced  that  their  crucified  leader  had  arisen 
from  the  dead  and  had  become  a  spiritual  agent, 
grouped  themselves  together  in  Jerusalem  and  formed  a 
religious  congregation  whose  distinguishing  tenet  was 
a  belief  in  the  near  approach  of  the  earthly  kingdom  of 
God,  whose  ruler  would  be  Jesus.  In  his  powerful  name, 
the  members  of  the  congregation  could  perform  miracles 
of  healing  where  the  faith  was  sufficient.  This  form  of 
Christianity  did  not  differ  very  widely  from  Judaism  in 
anything  but  this  belief  in  Jesus  as  the  expected  Mes- 
siah. It  is  obvious  that  this  difference  has  no  essential 
meaning  to  us  to-day  who  know  the  origin  and  import 
of  the  Messianic  hope  of  the  Jews.  Let  us  be  frank 
with  ourselves  and  clear  our  minds  of  these  dreams  of 
the  past.  These  early  Christians  deceived  themselves ; 
their  hopes  were  not  fulfilled;  the  earthly  kingdom  of 
God  did  not  come.  Jesus  was  not  the  Messiah  for  the 
simple  reason  that  there  is  no  such  person.  He  was  not 
the  Messiah  any  more  than  Mohammed  Ahmed  was  the 
Mahdi  —  and  for  the  very  same  reason.  Mahdis  and 
Messiahs  and  Buddhas  are  creations  of  religious  and 
race  imagination  just  as  King  Lear  is  the  product  of 

the  poetic  imagination  of  William  Shakespeare.     The 

84 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY        85 

educated  man  of  the  present  must  classify  these  figures 
as  tremendous  fictions  whose  power  is  waning.  When 
he  faces  them  squarely  and  asks  himself  what  signifi- 
cance they  have  for  his  life,  his  answer  must  be,  "  Only 
historical  and  artistic."  We  may  say,  then,  that  Chris- 
tianity in  its  first  form  has  been  outgrown. 

But  the  Messianic  form  of  Christianity  gave  it  a 
vividness  and  concrete  impressiveness  that  made  it  a 
force  among  the  men  of  that  age.  Jesus  was  the  heav- 
enly Messiah  who  would  return  in  power  and  rule  ac- 
cording to  righteousness.  With  him  was  bound  up  the 
hope  of  immortality  and  in  his  hand  was  dominion  over 
the  evils  which  beset  one's  path.  A  great  world-event 
was  impending;  at  any  moment  the  last  trumpet  might 
sound  and  the  dead  and  the  living  be  delivered  to  judg- 
ment. Moreover,  Jesus  as  the  Christ  and  Lord  was 
even  now  at  work  among  men,  his  Spirit  was  active  to 
guide  and  encourage  those  who  had  faith  in  him.  In 
the  congregation  at  Jerusalem,  this  belief  in  Jesus  as 
the  Messiah  was  closely  associated  with  the  past  history 
of  the  race  and  did  not  involve  a  break  with  the  Law. 
The  Old  Testament  was  searched  to  find  prophecies 
which  would  throw  light  upon  this  apparently  new  de- 
parture and  soon  passage  after  passage  was  found 
which  would  easily  lend  itself  to  the  desired  interpreta- 
tion. Under  the  guidance  of  these  passages  and  of  the 
new  outlook,  the  life  of  the  prophet  of  Nazareth  was 
re-molded  until  it  lost  the  greater  part  of  its  more  hu- 
man features. 

Such  an  important  amendment  of  the  Jewish  religion 
could  not  keep  itself  hidden.  The  Jews  of  the  disper- 
sion, broadened  by  their  contact  with  the  political,  philo- 


86          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

sophical  and  religious  movements  of  the  Roman  empire, 
yet  cherishing  a  sincere  faith  in  the  traditions  of  their 
fathers,  heard  of  the  new  sect  which  had  arisen  in  Pales- 
tine. Their  interest  was  aroused.  Sometimes  they  felt 
sympathetic,  sometimes  they  were  antagonistic.  Slowly 
at  first  and  then  more  rapidly  through  the  work  of 
Paul,  they  came  in  more  direct  contact  with  this  new 
movement.  By  this  time,  it  had  already  become  Hellen- 
istic in  its  spirit  and  attitude.  Around  the  nucleus  of 
the  life  of  Jesus  and  his  resurrection,  the  seething, 
myriad-shaped  ideas  of  the  age  attached  themselves. 
The  Palestinian  congregation  was  left  behind  in  its 
peaceful  conservatism  while  the  movement  which  it  had 
inaugurated  grew  by  leaps  and  bounds  and  swept  out- 
ward into  the  tossing  ocean  of  faiths  and  philosophies 
which  extended  from  India  to  Gaul.  To  suppose  that 
it  could  remain  unchanged  in  such  fellowship  is  to  under- 
value the  assimilative  tendencies  in  the  social  mind. 
The  Greeks  and  Romans  and  Egyptians  and  Syrians 
could  not  think  as  Jews.  They  inevitably  interpreted 
it  in  terms  of  their  own  ideas  and  problems  in  order  to 
comprehend  it. 

We  have  already  considered  the  interpretation  which 
Paul  gave  to  Christianity.  It  was,  as  we  saw,  domi- 
nated by  the  apocalyptic  notion  of  a  heavenly,  or  spirit- 
ual, man  while  it  gave  ample  recognition  to  the  desire 
for  salvation  from  sin  and  participation  in  the  divine 
life.  Thus  Christianity  was  brought  into  touch  with 
the  mystery-cults  and  responded  to  the  yearning  for 
some  guarantee  of  immortality  so  wide-spread  at  this 
time.  "  But  if  the  Spirit  of  him  that  raised  up  Jesus 
from  the  dead  dwelleth  in  you,  he  that  raised  up  Christ 
Jesus  from  the  dead  shall  quicken  also  your  mortal 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       87 

foodies  through  his  Spirit  which  dwelleth  in  you."  We 
should  compare  this  passage  from  Romans  with  the 
corresponding  discussion  in  Corinthians  (1,  15),  "  And 
if  Christ  hath  not  been  raised,  then  is  our  preaching 
vain,  our  faith  also  is  vain."  The  message  which  he 
brought  to  the  Hellenistic  world  was  in  its  essentials  a 
definite  one.  Jesus,  a  man  who  recently  lived  in  Pales- 
tine and  did  wonders,  was  raised  by  God  and  has  be- 
come a  heavenly  man,  the  guarantee  of  immortality  to 
those  who  have  faith  in  him.  The  last  trumpet  of  the 
day  of  judgment  will  sound  and  the  dead  will  be  raised 
with  spiritual  or  incorruptible  bodies,  and  those  who  are 
still  alive  will  be  changed  and  given  these  spiritual 
bodies  since  flesh  and  blood  cannot  enter  the  coming 
kingdom  of  God.  This  message  is  the  natural  inter- 
pretation of  Christianity  by  a  learned  Hellenistic  Jew. 

But  this  was  merely  the  beginning  of  the  evolution  of 
Christianity.  The  next  phase  involves  its  interpreta- 
tion by  the  Gnostic  movement.  Let  us  see  first  what 
this  Gnostic  movement  was  before  we  try  to  determine 
its  direct  and  indirect  influence  upon  Christianity. 

So  far  as  can  be  made  out,  Gnosticism  was  a  religious 
philosophy  which  grew  up  in  the  eastern  part  of  the 
Roman  empire.  Toward  the  making  of  this  theoso- 
phy  went  many  strands  of  refined  mythology  coming 
from  India,  Persia,  Alexandria  and  Palestine.  It  was 
an  esoteric  doctrine  representing  that  free  mingling  of 
traditions  from  all  sources  so  characteristic  of  the  age. 
Those  traditions  were  worked  up  by  reflection  into  a 
fairly  systematic  outlook  upon  the  world,  entirely  con- 
tinuous with  mythology  yet  far  more  highly  developed. 
Gnosticism  cannot  be  called  a  philosophy  in  the  techni- 
cal sense  of  that  term  since  its  constructions  did  not 


88          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

have  a  critical  foundation.  So  far  as  it  used  Greek  phi- 
losophy, it  drew  from  the  more  pictorial  myths  of  Plato 
and  the  conception  of  subordinate  powers  or  demons 
advanced  by  stoicism.  Its  interest  was  not,  how- 
ever, philosophical  but  rather  theosophical  in  character. 
The  relation  of  the  individual  soul  to  the  world-powers 
and  the  way  in  which  a  future  state  of  happiness  could 
be  reached  occupied  its  attention  in  the  first  instance; 
and  the  theology  which  it  developed  represented  the 
stage-setting  for  this  personal  drama.  I  do  not  think 
it  is  saying  too  much  when  I  state  that  there  is  nothing 
in  Gnosticism  which  modern  science  and  philosophy  can 
recognize  as  having  a  valid  foundation.  We  can  under- 
stand why  it  developed,  just  as  we  can  understand  why 
mythology  arose,  but  it  was  a  mistaken  movement  be- 
cause it  followed  the  old  mythological  path  of  explana- 
tion. If  the  direction  taken  by  reflection  is  wrong,  the 
most  strenuous  endeavors  cannot  lead  to  truth. 

Gnosticism  possessed  certain  tenets  which  were  very 
wide-spread  in  ancient  civilization.  The  flesh  was 
looked  upon  as  a  thing  of  evil  which  corrupted  the  soul. 
The  physical  world  was  in  fact  given  over  to  the  pow- 
ers of  darkness  while  the  spiritual  world  was  ruled  by 
the  god  of  light  and  purity.  This  dualism  with  its  ac- 
companying asceticism  is  to  be  found  in  the  Persian  re- 
ligion, in  India,  in  later  Jewish  thought,  in  the  Orphic 
cults  of  Greece  and  even  in  Plato.  It  entered  into 
Christianity  as  naturally  as  science  does  into  our  out- 
look to-day.  All  through  the  early  years  of  the  Chris- 
tian era,  and  during  the  Middle  Ages,  this  contrast 
existed  and  controlled  ethics.  All  of  which  goes  to 
show  that  Christianity  was  not  the  creation  of  a  single 
man  but  the  flowering  out  of  religious  mythology. 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY        89 

According  to  the  teaching  of  Gnosticism,  the  soul  was 
in  danger  of  destruction  or  of  dire  calamities  unless  it 
possessed  the  proper  preparation  for  its  journey  after 
death.  The  best  means  of  safety  was  the  participation 
in  the  life  of  some  savior-god  who  had  vanquished  the 
powers  of  darkness  and  evil.  It  is  evident  that  the 
world-setting  of  Gnosticism  was  not  far  different  from 
that  of  Christianity.  They  were  products  of  the  same 
age,  outgrowths  of  a  similar  soil.  The  advantage 
which  Christianity  had  was  its  connection  with  a  noble 
personality  and  the  ethical  background  which  this  gave 
it.  Gnosticism  was  oriental  far  more  than  it  was  Greek. 
Had  it  been  connected  with  the  ethical  teaching  of  the 
classic  Greek  tradition,  had  a  myth  of  the  resurrection 
of  some  noble  teacher  like  Plato  arisen  to  control  the 
phantasy  of  the  oriental  mind,  the  result  would  not 
have  been  far  different  from  Christianity. 

It  was  only  natural  that  Gnosticism  with  its  belief 
in  a  savior-god  should  feel  itself  drawn  to  Christianity 
with  its  similar  teaching.  Jesus  was  regarded  by  the 
Christian  gnostics  as  divine,  as  an  eternal  being  who  had 
manifested  himself  historically  in  fulfillment  of  his  func- 
tion of  mediator.  The  Christian  congregations  were 
thus  forced  to  taken  another  step  in  the  deification  of 
Jesus.  For  Paul,  he  was  still  a  man,  the  second  or 
spiritual  Adam  who  began  a  new  dispensation.  For 
the  earlier  Christians,  he  was  the  God-selected  Messiah. 
He  now  became  a  god  who  was  also  the  son  of  God. 
The  evolution  was  inevitable  in  the  intellectual  environ- 
ment of  the  time.  But  the  Christian  congregations,  as 
represented  by  their  clearest  thinkers,  wished  to  avoid 
gnostic  extremes  and  to  keep  near  the  historical  basis 
and  the  ethical  monotheism  of  the  best  Hebrew  tradi- 


90          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

tion.  Jesus  was  God,  but  he  was  also  man.  In  this 
way,  arose  the  doctrine  of  the  incarnation.  Instead  of 
being  a  monument  of  mystical  insight  as  theologians 
tell  us,  it  was  the  consequence  of  a  problem  forced  upon 
the  Church.  In  other  words,  the  doctrine  of  the  Trin- 
ity is  the  attempt  to  combine  gnostic  polytheism  and 
monotheism.  The  only  way  three  can  be  made  one  is 
by  a  mystery,  so  a  mystery  it  became.  It  is  a  bit  of 
verbal  gymnastic  or  a  formal  solution  of  an  impossible 
problem  which  the  pressure  of  events  had  forced  upon 
the  Church. 

Christianity  was  now  on  the  high-road  to  a  theology. 
To  enter  the  Hellenistic  world  and  not  be  forced  to  de- 
velop a  theology  was  simply  impossible.  The  first  fruit 
of  this  entrance  into  the  intellectual  world  of  the  time 
was  the  Fourth  Gospel  or  the  so-called  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  John.  Scholars  have  begun  to  interpret  this 
gospel  as  an  attempt  to  combine  the  older  Christian  tra- 
dition with  the  theological  speculations  of  the  age. 
The  beginning  of  the  gospel  strikes  a  new  note  which 
separates  it  immediately  from  the  synoptics.  "  In  the 
beginning  was  the  Word  (Logos)  and  the  Word  was 
with  God  and  the  Word  was  God."  What  is  this  Word 
or  Logos  with  which  the  historical  Jesus  was  identified  ? 
For  Philo,  the  Alexandrian  Jew  who  played  such  an  im-> 
portant  part  in  the  theological  speculation  of  the  time, 
the  Logos  was  a  second  God,  the  reflection  of  his  glory, 
the  only  begotten  Son,  the  actual  creator  of  the  world, 
his  active  agent  at  work  in  events.  It  is  not  going  too 
far  to  assert  that,  without  the  speculations  of  Philo,  the 
Fourth  Gospel  could  not  have  been  written.  And  yet 
Philo  was  merely  developing  and  applying  to  the  Old 
Testament  the  writings  of  the  stoic  philosophy  and  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       91 

teaching  of  Plato.  Does  it  not  follow  that,  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  we  have  the  more  theosophic  portions 
of  ancient  philosophy  attached  externally  to  the  life  of 
the  Prophet  of  Nazareth?  Under  such  conditions  of 
origin,  how  can  we  begin  to  separate  reason  and  revela- 
tion? Gnosticism,  stoicism,  platonism,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, the  stories  of  the  life  of  Jesus,  the  broadening  of 
Christianity,  all  went  together  to  make  possible  the  mys- 
tic theology  of  this  gospel. 

But  the  more  Jesus  was  transformed  into  a  god,  the 
more  he  lost  his  human  characteristics.  The  figure  of 
Jesus  becomes  elusive  and  shadowy ;  he  lives  among  men 
but  is  not  of  them.  To  make  God  a  man  or  man  a 
second  God  was  an  impossible  task.  When  all  is  said, 
the  Fourth  Gospel  performs  this  task  about  as  well  as 
it  could  be  done,  yet  Jesus  is  no  longer  a  Galilean  peas- 
ant but  a  mystic  being  who  speaks  in  riddles. 

This  vital  interplay  of  Christianity  and  Hellenistic 
thought  led  to  the  passing  away  of  the  older  Messianic 
idea  with  its  distinct  limitations.  A  noble  monotheism 
was  the  result,  while  the  concrete,  human  element  which 
the  historical  origins  of  Christianity  had  contributed  to 
it  prevented  this  monotheism  from  losing  sight  of  human 
problems.  The  value  of  Christianity  lies  in  its  ethics 
but  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  ethics  could  have  become 
effective  unless  it  had  been  carried  by  the  more  chaotic 
beliefs  which  we  usually  call  religious.  There  can  be 
little  doubt  that  some  religious  system  would  have  con- 
quered the  Roman  empire ;  the  educational  level  was  too 
low  to  enable  the  better  type  of  philosophy  to  dominate 
the  life  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  Magic  and  other- 
worldism  were  rampant  because  the  social  and  political 
organization  was  unsatisfactory  and  mental  discipline 


92          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

was  not  wide-spread.  In  brief,  the  world  was  still  at 
the  mythological  level  and  was  not  yet  prepared  for  a 
higher  plane.  This  being  so,  the  success  of  Christianity 
was  the  best  thing  which  could  have  happened. 

Later  phases  of  the  evolution  of  Christianity  force 
us  to  qualify  this  position  that  its  success  was  the  best 
thing  which  could  have  happened.  In  order  to  escape 
the  dangers  which  free  theosophizing  brought,  the  lead- 
ers of  the  Christian  congregations  felt  the  need  of  a 
firmer  organization.  The  result  was  the  gradual  con- 
centration of  moral  and  doctrinal  authority  in  the 
hands  of  bishops.  The  early  Church  had  been  demo- 
cratic in  polity  but  the  times  were  not  ripe  for  such 
democracy  and  slowly  elders  were  chosen  to  be  leaders. 
These  elders  were  shepherds  or  bishops,  that  is,  spiritual 
overseers.  Soon  they  claimed  and  were  granted  life- 
tenure  and  greater  authority.  Every  analogy  from  the 
Old  Testament  and  from  the  larger  political  organiza- 
tion of  the  time  worked  in  their  favor.  This  assump- 
tion of  authority  on  the  part  of  the  bishops  is  well 
represented  by  the  letter  of  warning  sent  out  by  Bishop 
Ignatius  of  Antioch.  "  Obey  the  Bishop  as  Jesus 
Christ  the  Father,  and  the  Presbyters  as  the  Apostles, 
but  honor  the  Deacons  as  the  law  of  the  Lord.  .  .  . 
Whoever  honors  the  Bishop  is  honored  of  God ;  whoever 
does  aught  behind  the  Bishop's  back,  serves  the  devil." 
The  natural  result  of  this  changed  organization  was  the 
doctrine  of  Apostolic  succession.  With  this  doctrine 
went  another,  the  belief  in  the  Apostolic  Origin  of  the 
articles  of  faith.  The  flexible  growth  of  Christianity 
was  at  an  end.  There  arose  a  series  of  dogmas  enun- 
ciated by  Councils  of  bishops  and  these  were  forced  upon 
Christianity  as  authoritative.  Free  enquiry  and  specu- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       93 

lation  was  at  an  end.  A  religion  with  a  creed  had  ap- 
peared, a  thing  unknown  before  in  the  history  of  ancient 
thought. 

When  Protestantism  arose,  it  made  a  half-hearted 
appeal  to  the  spirit  of  free  inquiry.  Protestantism 
was,  however,  a  complex  movement  with  decided  limita- 
tions in  the  motives  at  work  and  the  knowledge  on  which 
to  build.  The  old  church  organization,  molded  on  the 
lines  of  the  Roman  empire,  was  discarded  and  the  func- 
tion of  the  priesthood  was  changed,  but  the  intellectual 
attitude  and  the  creed  upheld  remained  practically  the 
same.  Some  of  the  more  radical  branches  of  the  move- 
ment like  the  baptists  of  Northern  Italy  were  sup- 
pressed too  soon  to  allow  their  influence  to  be  felt.  On 
the  whole,  Protestantism  was  hampered  by  the  New 
Testament  canon  which  it  inherited  from  the  later 
stages  of  the  evolution  of  Christianity.  It  seldom  went 
seriously  back  of  the  stage  at  which  Jesus  was  deified. 
Its  reforms  were  social  and  political  rather  than  theo- 
logical. The  tendency  was  to  establish  the  bible  as 
ultimate  authority  without  investigation  as  to  its  ori- 
gin. The  consequence  of  this  establishment  of  the  bible 
as  the  final  court  of  appeal  was  decidedly  harmful  since 
it  set  reason  and  experience  over  against  a  supposed 
revelation.  So  far  as  Protestantism  itself  was  con- 
cerned, it  did  not  have  in  it,  as  a  consequence  of  this 
bibliolatry,  the  intellectual  vitality  necessary  to  a  true 
evolution.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  larger  social,  scien- 
tific and  philosophical  developments  which  sprang  up  at 
the  same  time  and  founded  themselves  on  reason  and 
experience,  the  protestant  revolt  would  have  ended  in  a 
blind  alley.  There  is  every  reason  to  believe,  however, 
that  it  helped  to  break  the  tyranny  of  the  theological 


94          THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

view  of  the  world  and  to  free  the  human  spirit  for  new 
endeavors.  Protestantism,  just  because  it  was  a  revolt, 
could  not  attain  sufficient  unity  and  power  to  stamp 
out  intellectual  freedom.  The  modern  world  was  too 
complex  to  be  dominated  by  religion.  But  we  have 
already  indicated  the  conditions  which  gave  rise  to 
the  higher  criticism  whose  results  we  have  been  summar- 
izing. 

We  must  frankly  ask  ourselves  what  features  of  his- 
torical Christianity  are  congruent  with  our  modern  life. 
The  Hellenistic  world  to  which  dogma  and  ritual  are 
mainly  due  is  a  thing  of  the  past,  existent  for  no  one  but 
the  scholar.  Ours  is  a  new  world  with  new  ideas,  new 
problems  and  new  possibilities.  Does  the  recognition 
of  historical  continuity  preclude  the  acknowledgment 
of  very  radical  changes? 

I  am  certain  that  the  deification  of  Jesus  will  be  given 
up  step  by  step.  He  was  not  born  miraculously,  nor 
was  he  preexistent  as  the  Word  or  Logos.  These  terms 
do  not  fit  into  an  outlook  dominated  by  science.  To 
call  him  the  Son  of  God  in  an  exclusive  sense  is  not  war- 
ranted by  the  facts,  nor  has  it  any  clear  meaning  for  the 
present  age.  To  the  old  Greek,  Egyptian,  and  Roman, 
the  idea  was  familiar;  many  of  the  patrician  families 
traced  their  descent  to  Apollo  or  Jupiter.  But  such  a 
literal  interpretation  of  the  phrase  has  no  sanction  for 
us,  and  any  other  than  a  literal  meaning  is  essentially 
meaningless.  Jesus  was  a  noble  and  tender-hearted 
man  with  the  beliefs  of  his  age.  To  speak  of  him  as 
ideally  perfect  and  sinless  is  absurd  just  because  these 
terms  are  absolutes  where  relatives  alone  have  meaning. 
Like  most  theological  terms  they  cut  themselves  loose 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY       95 

from  their  necessary  setting,  which,  in  this  case,  is 
human  nature  and  society. 

When  the  necessary  critical  work  has  been  done,  what 
is  left  of  the  stately  theology  reared  by  Church  Fathers, 
councils  and  scholastics?  Apparently  only  a  mellowed 
religion  with  a  universalistic  outlook  and  a  strong  ethi- 
cal trend.  This  mellowness  and  this  universalism  were 
not  qualities  present  in  perfection  from  the  start,  al- 
though we  cannot  say  that  Christianity  was  antagon- 
istic to  them.  Mellowness  takes  time.  I  cannot  but 
feel  that  men  like  St.  Francis,  Pascal,  Bossuet,  Fenelon, 
Melancthon,  Wesley,  on  the  ecclesiastical  side,  and  men 
like  Plato,  Aristotle,  Galileo,  Newton,  Fichte,  Darwin, 
and  Mazzini,  on  the  laic  side,  have  contributed  to  this 
mellowness.  From  this  point  of  view,  we  can  best  de- 
scribe modern  Christianity  as  an  evolution  of  Hebrew 
ethical  monotheism  along  tenderer  and  more  human 
lines  under  the  stimulus  of  many  very  noble  personali- 
ties. 

During  the  latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
Christianity  passed  through  a  fire  of  criticism  which 
rocked  it  to  its  foundation.  To  those  who  lived  at  that 
time,  the  transition  from  the  older,  and  more  dogmatic, 
form  was  accompanied  by  spiritual  and  moral  struggles 
which  seem  to  us  exaggerated.  The  very  indifference 
of  the  present  age  shows  that  the  atmosphere  has 
cleared  and  that  new  values  have  come  to  the  front.  A 
short  while  since,  I  picked  up  Hutton's  once  famous 
book,  Modern  Guides  of  English  Thought  m  Matters  of 
Faith,  and  read  his  analysis  of  the  life  of  Cardinal  New- 
man and  his  interesting  criticism  of  Matthew  Arnold. 
I  must  confess  that  the  time-spirit  of  which  Arnold 


96         THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

made  so  much  has  done  its  work.  The  scene  is  shifting 
from  a  religion  which  stresses  a  peculiar  form  of  salva- 
tion and  a  career  in  another  world  to  social  and  eco- 
nomic conditions  and  ideals.  Is  there  not  something 
Byronic  in  much  of  Arnold's  religious  poetry?  Is  there 
not  too  much  of  the  pageant  of  the  bleeding  heart  in  his 
sighs  of  regret  and  farewell?  Yet  he  realized  that  the 
old  faith  was  dying  and  that  man  had  not  yet  found 
that  which  could  fill  its  place.  It  takes  time  to  make  an 
adjustment  in  these  matters,  just  as  it  is  time  alone  that 
softens  the  griefs  of  unrequited  love  or  the  loss  of  dear 
ones.  And  it  is  usually  only  the  next  generation,  which 
has  been  able  to  make  a  genuinely  fresh  start,  that  set- 
tles into  a  new  way  of  life. 

Change  is  a  great  physician  because  it  is  able  to  in- 
troduce new  factors  into  the  situation,  and  it  has  been 
at  work  since  Arnold's  day.  There  are,  nevertheless, 
prophecies  in  his  poems  of  another  world  which  would 
before  long  take  the  place  of  the  one  that  was  dying; 
and  some  of  us  believe  that,  in  the  new  democracy  which 
is  stirring  into  life  throughout  the  earth,  this  new  and 
more  creative  world  is  being  born : 

"  The  millions  suffer  still  and  grieve, 
And  what  can  helpers  heal 
With  old-world  cures  men  half  believe 
For  woes  they  wholly  feel? 

"  And  yet  men  have  such  need  of  joy! 
But  joy  whose  grounds  are  true; 
And  joy  that  should  all  hearts  employ 
As  when  the  past  was  new." 

In  the  figure  of  Jesus,  ethical  and  aesthetic  idealiza- 
tion guided  by  religious  emotion  has  created  a  person- 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  CHRISTIANITY        97 

ality  of  a  peculiarly  appealing  type  well  fitted  to  remain 
as  an  ideal  to  foster  and  strengthen  the  noblest  tenden- 
cies. But  this  ideal  has  become  practically  self-sup- 
porting apart  from,  its  mythical  scaffolding.  Its  real 
foundation  to-day  is  in  its  appeal  to  sympathies,  natu- 
ral to  social  beings,  which  the  spiritual  evolution  of 
humanity  has  developed  and  given  content  to.  When 
man  succeeds  in  applying  these  sympathies  rationally, 
in  a  social  fashion,  he  may  bring  upon  this  sad  old  earth 
some  measure  of  that  kingdom  for  which  Jesus  longed. 
But  Christianity  has  stood  and,  on  the  whole,  still 
stands  for  certain  beliefs  in  regard  to  the  universe  as 
a  whole  and  the  relation  of  man  to  it,  which  only  pa- 
tient reflection  and  inductive  investigation  can  settle. 
By  their  very  nature,  these  beliefs  cannot  have  an  his- 
torical justification  although  they  have  had  an  his- 
torical origin.  Taking  these  beliefs  in  their  simplest 
form  and  separating  them  from  all  connection  with  the 
figure  of  Jesus  and  the  developed  ethics  whose  stimulus 
goes  back  to  him,  they  become  an  acceptance  of  an 
ethical  God,  a  special  providence  and  immortality.  Re- 
move these  postulates,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the- 
ology has  not  also  disappeared.  It  behooves  us  to  ex- 
amine the  validity  of  these  postulates  in  the  light  of 
modern  science  and  philosophy. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  SCIENCE  AND 
THEOLOGY 

THE  conviction  that  there  is  a  deep-seated  conflict  be- 
tween the  religious  view  the  world,  characteristic  of  the 
past,  and  the  outlook  which  has  been  shaping  under  the 
guiding  hands  of  science  and  philosophy  is  held  by  an 
ever  increasing  number.  Those  who  deny  this  con- 
flict are  judged  to  be  either  willing  self-deceivers  or 
postponers  of  the  evil  day  of  confession.  Many  books 
have  been  written  to  detail  the  warfare  between  the 
champions  of  orthodoxy  and  the  leaders  of  the  advance 
guard  of  science.  The  persecution  of  Galileo,  the  burn- 
ing of  Bruno,  the  bitter  attacks  upon  the  founders  of 
the  theory  of  organic  evolution  are  cited  as  examples  of 
the  unavoidable  warfare.  For  the  nonce,  there  is  a  lull 
in  the  battle  which  was  waged  so  fiercely  by  Tyndall  and 
Huxley;  but  this  lull  does  not  signify  that  a  treaty  of 
peace  has  been  signed,  but  only  that  the  combatants 
have  shifted  their  ground.  The  forces  of  orthodoxy 
have  sullenly  retreated  to  another  line  of  entrenchments. 
The  objective  observer  can  entertain  little  doubt  that 
the  intellectual  forces  of  orthodoxy  have  been  worsted 
in  the  open  field  and  have  become  disheartened  by  the 
growing  revelation  of  the  number  and  strength  and  per- 
sistence of  the  workers  in  the  service  of  science.  The 
prestige  of  science  bids  fair  to  equal,  if  not  to  surpass, 

98 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  99 

that  of  the  church.  Hence,  the  desire  of  the  theologian 
is  to  avoid  a  renewal  of  the  conflict,  or  else  to  change  the 
mode  of  the  warfare. 

And  here  I  shall  venture  a  prophecy.  The  new  battle 
will  be  waged  around  psychology  and  philosophy.  Al- 
ready the  lines  are  being  drawn  between  the  defenders 
of  an  extra-organic  soul  and  the  experimental  sappers 
in  the  laboratories  of  biology  and  psychology  who  are 
seeking  to  show  that  mind  and  body  are  inseparable, 
that,  indeed,  mind  is  just  a  term  for  certain  capacities 
of  control  exercised  by  the  brain.  The  crucial  charac- 
ter of  this  growing  conflict,  which  is  yet  not  much  be- 
yond the  status  of  a  skirmish,  leaps  to  the  eyes,  as  the 
French  say.  Is  not  even  the  soul  to  be  spared  the  siege 
before  which  the  human  body  fell  ?  Is  it  to  be  placed  on 
the  dissection-table  and  teased  apart  into  its  component 
strands?  Even  so.  The  process  has  already  begun, 
and  far  more  has  been  accomplished  than  is  generally 
known.  The  solution  of  the  mind-body  problem  is  al- 
ready in  the  air.  And,  with  it,  will  come  theoretical 
consequences  by  no  means  secondary  to  those  associated 
with  the  theory  of  evolution.  With  some  of  these  con- 
sequences we  shall  be  concerned  in  a  later  chapter. 

Christianity  has  been  bound  up  with  the  letter  and 
even  with  the  spirit  of  a  sacred  book.  Naturally,  this 
book  reflects  the  view  of  the  world  held  by  people  about 
two  thousand  years  ago.  It  contains  primitive  notions 
of  the  origin  of  things,  a  nai've  conception  of  the  rela- 
tion of  the  sun  to  the  earth,  a  belief  that  demons  are  the 
cause  of  sickness,  a  conviction  that  souls  merely  inhabit 
bodies  temporarily, 'and  an  apocalyptic  idea  of  the  end 
of  the  world  in  a  last  judgment.  As  we  have  seen,  no 
part  of  this  outlook  was  particularly  unique,  but  it  was 


100        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

accepted  by  the  Christian  Church  as  inspired  because  it 
was  found  in  the  canonical  writings  accredited  to 
prophets  and  apostles.  During  the  Middle  Ages,  this 
biblical  view  of  the  world  was  united  with  the  astronomi- 
cal and  physical  teaching  of  Aristotle  and  hardened 
into  a  system.  So  intimate  was  this  union  between 
these  cosmological  elements  and  Christianity  felt  to  be 
that  an  attack  upon  one  was  taken  as  an  attack  upon 
the  whole.  To  doubt  the  primitive  notions  of  the  world 
and  man's  place  therein  was  to  doubt  the  bible;  and  to 
doubt  the  bible  as  an  inspired  compendium  of  informa- 
tion was  to  doubt  Christianity. 

For  the  sake  of  perspective,  it  will  repay  us  to  note 
the  order  in  which  these  primitive  ideas  were  attacked 
and  replaced  by  more  adequate  ones.  It  will  be  noticed 
that  the  general  cosmological  setting  was  first  recon- 
structed and  that  the  growing  point  passed  thence  to 
the  center,  the  nature  and  destiny  of  man.  As  we  indi- 
cated above,  the  replacement  of  older  by  newer  and 
better-founded  views  is  proceeding  most  rapidly  at  this 
crucial  point.  Having  obtained  a  different  and  vaster 
heaven  and  earth,  man  has  turned  the  microscope  upon 
himself.  The  suspicion  is  growing  ever  more  insistent 
that  he,  also,  is  a  natural  part  of  this  procession  of 
things. 

When,  at  the  time  of  the  Renaissance,  modern  science 
was  born,  the  first  field  invaded  with  success  was  that  of 
astronomy.  Copernicus  became  convinced  that  the  cur- 
rent theory,  called  the  Ptolemaic,  was  untenable  because 
it  led  to  insuperable  complexities  in  the  interpretation 
of  the  observed  paths  of  the  heavenly  bodies.  He  was 
led  to  suggest  that  the  sun  was  the  actual  center  of  the 
system  and  that  the  earth  revolved  around  it  in  the 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  101 

course  of  a  year.  One  can  easily  imagine  the  furore 
such  a  daring  hypothesis  aroused.  The  Copernican 
theory  was  scoffed  at  by  learned  and  ignorant  alike,  for 
it  upset  the  whole  picture  of  the  world  which  had  been 
tranquilly  accepted  from  early  times,  except  by  such  a 
radical  non-conformist  as  Aristarchus  of  Samos.  To 
appreciate  the  intellectual  revolution  threatened,  one  has 
only  to  read  Dante's  "  Divine  Comedy,"  for  Dante 
journeys  from  planet  to  planet  and  thinks  of  them  as 
arranged  within  crystalline  spheres  revolving  slowly 
about  the  earth.  In  the  second  canto  of  Paradise,  he 
speaks  of  the  blessed  motors  who  make  the  holy  spheres 
revolve.  These  motors  are  angels  of  various  orders 
resident  in  the  spheres  and  transmitting  to  them  the 
efficacy  of  the  Divine  Intelligence.  Thus  infant  science 
had  to  challenge  the  appearance  of  things  to  the  eye, 
and  a  system  bound  up  with  the  religious  view  of  the 
world. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  old  geocentric  view  of  the  world, 
which  thought  of  the  earth  as  the  center  of  the  universe, 
was  nothing  more  than  a  statement  of  the  apparent  re- 
lations of  the  visible  heavens  to  the  broad  earth  which 
stretches  out  on  either  hand  as  far  as  eye  can  see. 
That  this  natural  view  of  things  was  taken  up  into  the 
religious  picture  of  the  universe  was  the  occurrence  to 
be  expected.  Had  it  not  been  and  had  the  priests  and 
prophets  enunciated  the  Copernican  theory,  there  would 
be  reason  to  suspect  a  hidden  source  of  revelation. 
Needless  to  say  such  a  reversal  of  the  natural  sequence 
never  occurs. 

It  is  only  when  we  grasp  the  naive  outlook  of  early 
days  that  we  can  realize  the  full  significance  of  many 
Christian  doctrines.  Let  us  take  the  articles  of  the 


102        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

creed.  We  are  taught  to  believe  that  Jesus  descended 
into  Hell  and  then  ascended  into  Heaven  and  sitteth  on 
the  right  hand  of  God.  What  is  this  Hell  into  which 
Jesus  is  supposed  to  have  descended?  It  is  the  Sheol  of 
the  old  Hebrews,  a  misty  region  below  the  surface  of  the 
earth;  it  is  the  Hades  of  the  Greeks,  the  place  of  the 
departed  shades ;  it  is  the  Avernus  of  the  Romans,  the 
lower  regions  where  ghosts  flit  and  gibber.  This  place 
of  the  dead  is  at  first  the  grave  and  sinks  deeper  into  the 
earth  as  time  passes  and  the  myth-making  fancy  has 
been  directed  upon  it.  But  it  is  thought  of  literally  as 
in  the  bowels  of  the  earth.  All  through  the  Middle 
ages  this  naive  view  was  held.  There  was  an  absolute 
down  and  a  subterranean  Hell,  and  every  country  told 
of  some  cavern  which  was  one  of  its  many  mouths. 
With  the  advent  of  the  Copernican  view  what  becomes  of 
these  age-old  ideas  ?  To  save  them  they  must  be  trans- 
formed and  given  another  location  or  a  merely  sym- 
bolic meaning.  But  why  save  them  ?  They  are  as  pure 
myths  as  any  others  to  be  found  in  olden  days.  They 
are  brother  to  Tartarus  and  the  Battle  of  the  Titans 
and  the  Slaying  of  Rahab.  The  early  Christians  be- 
lieved in  a  literal  Hell  beneath  the  surface  of  the  earth. 
Their  belief  was  wrong  beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt. 
We  cannot  make  it  true  by  modifying  it  out  of  all 
recognition. 

The  ascent  into  Heaven  was  thought  of  as  a  literal 
ascension  of  the  resurrected  body  by  the  majority  of 
early  Christians.  We  have  seen,  however,  that  Paul 
did  not  teach  any  such  doctrine.  But  even  for  Paul, 
Jesus,  as  the  Messiah,  was  literally  in  the  heavens  di- 
rectly above  the  earth.  Into  this  region  Paul  is  caught 
up  in  ecstasy  —  even  to  the  third  heaven.  It  is  from 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  103 

this  region,  not  very  far  above  us,  that  the  last  trump 
will  sound  and  the  day  of  judgment  dawn.  The  ac-^ 
count,  given  by  the  so-called  "  Revelation  of  St.  John 
the  Divine,"  which  has  led  to  so  much  foolish  contro- 
versy among  certain  protestant  sects,  is  typical  of  the 
apocalyptic  literature  of  the  time.  No  scholar  to-day 
believes  that  it  was  written  by  an  apostle  or  by  any  one 
in  direct  relation  to  an  apostle.  It  is  simply  an  example 
of  the  current  religious  phantasies  of  the  age  just  be- 
fore and  after  the  Fall  of  Jerusalem.  What  factual 
basis  could  there  be  for  such  myths  of  the  end  of  the 
world?  To  take  this  old  picture  of  the  days  to  come 
as  having  anything  but  historical  interest  is  to  live  in  a 
mist.  Only  the  scholar  can  understand  the  allusions" 
made  and  connect  the  ideas  with  the  beliefs  of  this 
vanished  world.  It  is  poetry,  a  creation  of  generations 
of  dreamers  steeped  in  the  tremendous  idea  of  a  coming 
destruction  preceded  by  portents  and  disasters.  We 
can  understand  how  it  arose  in  the  motley  and  chaotic 
press  of  the  Roman  Empire  in  the  East  with  its  memo- 
ries of  oppressions  and  conquests  and  changing  king- 
doms ;  but  to  regard  it  gravely  as  a  revelation,  to  be 
taken  seriously,  of  the  destruction  of  the  world  is  im- 
possible. The  universe  was  a  small  affair  for  the  men 
of  that  time  and  the  little  planet  we  call  the  earth  and 
live  upon  was  the  center  of  all  things.  We  who  think 
in  terms  of  light-years,  and  nebulae  in  which  our  solar 
system  could  be  lost,  and  huge  constellations  far  off  in 
the  pathless  void,  realize  that  we  have  outgrown  even  the 
imagery  of  this  apocalyptic  poem. 

Religion  was  loth  to  give  up  the  simpler  and  more 
child-like  ideas  of  the  universe  and  to  displace  the  earth 
from  its  proud  preeminence  as  the  one  foot-stool  of 


104,       THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

deity.  Man  feels  lonelier  in  the  tremendous  spaces  and 
stellar  systems  which  astronomy  has  revealed  to  his  eye 
and  mind.  But  the  facts  piled  up  by  science  in  its  pa- 
tient work  of  investigation  were  too  strong  to  be  ig- 
nored, and  religion  had  to  modify  its  teaching  by  at  least 
a  passive  acceptance  of  the  new  world  outlook  which 
would  have  been  so  strange  to  Jesus  and  Paul.  It  is 
evident  that  this  involves  the  quiet  giving  up  of  the 
truth  of  the  story  of  creation,  as  well  as  the  doctrine  of 
a  day  of  judgment.  When  we  once  realize  that  the 
earth  is  a  pin-point  in  the  physical  universe,  these 
stories,  woven  in  days  when  it  was  regarded  as  the  stable 
center  of  things,  are  seen  to  be  outgrown  myths. 

But  astronomy  was  followed  by  biology  with  its  hy- 
pothesis of  evolution.  No  sooner  had  religion  resigned 
itself  to  a  larger  world  than  its  peace  was  again  broken 
by  the  teaching  that  man  was  the  end-term  of  an  evolu- 
tion of  animal  life  going  far  back  into  the  dim  past. 
Instead  of  the  neat  little  tale  which  Hebrew  literature 
had  passed  on  to  the  Church,  men  were  asked  to  believe 
that  ages  of  slow  change  had  elapsed  while  one  form  of 
life  changed  to  a  more  complex  form  adapted  to  new 
conditions.  Soon  facts  rained  in  from  all  sides  to  make 
this  new  position  impregnable.  Geology  studied  the 
various  strata  of  rock  and  found  fossil  remains  which 
could  only  be  dated  back  millions  of  years.  Strange 
creatures  unlike  those  to  be  found  now  upon  the  earth 
were  brought  to  light.  Reptiles  of  monstrous  size, 
fishes  of  strange  shapes,  huge  trees  resembling  our 
ferns,  botanically  weeds,  yet  towering  into  the  heavens, 
were  unearthed  until  the  imagination  caught  glimpses 
of  past  ages  teeming  with  life.  The  teaching  of  geology 
was  reenforced  by  comparative  anatomy,  which  showed 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  105 

the  similarity  of  different  animals  which  had  been 
thought  of  as  quite  distinct.  Man,  himself,  was  ex- 
amined and  was  found  to  contain  traces  of  an  older 
mode  of  life.  Only  in  this  way  could  certain  atrophied 
organs,  like  the  appendix,  be  understood.  Before  long, 
comparative  embryology  arose  and  it  was  seen  that  the 
embryo  passes  through  certain  stages  of  development 
which  roughly  indicate  the  past  life  of  the  organism. 
On  all  lines,  investigation  taught  the  same  conclusion. 
That  there  was  evolution  in  nature,  so  that  new  forms 
of  life  developed  while  old  forms  passed  away,  no  one 
who  knew  the  facts  doubted.  What  factors  were  at 
work  to  produce  these  changes  was  not  entirely  known. 
The  new  outlook  was  set  in  the  place  of  the  old  myths ; 
but  the  details  of  the  evolutionary  process  required  care- 
ful working  out  by  patient  experiments  and  observa- 
tions. 

The  mythical  background  of  Christianity  was  thus 
again  attacked.  The  struggle  was  violent  and  bitter. 
Christians  were  so  accustomed  to  the  primitive  myth  of 
man's  creation  in  a  Garden  of  Eden,  as  narrated  in  the 
Old  Testament,  that  they  refused  for  a  long  time  to  con- 
sider any  other  view.  Bishops  and  laymen  denounced 
Huxley  and  Darwin  and  their  supporters,  and  often  re- 
sorted to  parodies  of  their  position  in  order  to  awaken 
the  prejudices  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  It  was  af- 
firmed that  they  believed  that  man  was  descended  from 
an  ape  or  monkey.  But  the  clergy  were  waging  a  losing 
fight  as  is  always  the  case  when  the  facts  are  over- 
whelmingly against  an  old  dogma.  The  educated  peo- 
ple of  to-day  accept  some  form  of  the  theory  of  evolu- 
tion as  naturally  as  they  accept  the  automobile  and 
electric  street-car.  They  see  no  reason  to  believe  that 


106        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

primitive  people  who  made  no  study  of  animal  life  knew 
more  about  its  origin  than  those  who  have  devoted  their 
time  to  careful  and  earnest  investigation.  Facts  speak 
for  themselves  and  conquer  what  opposes  them  no  mat- 
ter what  traditions  bolster  it  up. 

The  refuge  which  Christianity  has  taken  is  the  usual 
one  resorted  to  by  religions  which  find  themselves  in 
conflict  with  views  more  adequate  than  those  they  hold. 
The  myths  are  either  allegorized  or  thrust  into  the 
background.  Allegorization  of  myth  is  only  a  work 
of  fancy,  but  it  always  implies  a  tendency  to  self-decep- 
tion. So  long  as  we  see  tales  like  the  stories  of  creation 
in  a  sanely  historical  way,  we  realize  that  these  men  of 
the  past  were  stating  their  own  naive  beliefs  and  were 
not  teaching  our  own  views  in  the  guise  of  a  poetic 
version.  The  only  way  to  be  true  to  ourselves  is  to  give 
up  any  attempt  at  compromise  and  acknowledge  that 
the  account  of  man's  creation  given  in  "  Genesis  "  has 
simply  been  outgrown. 

Thus,  step  by  step,  the  framework  of  nature  and 
man's  place  in  it  as  taught  by  Christianity  has  come 
in  conflict  with  more  thoroughly  founded  views  and  has 
had  to  give  way.  Before  science  arose,  man  guessed  at 
things  and  appealed  to  the  gods  at  every  step.  The 
gods,  as  superhuman  powers  capable  of  doing  anything, 
were  naturally  introduced  to  account  for  origins  and 
mysterious  events.  Such  an  agent  seemed  a  sufficient 
answer  to  any  problem.  How  did  man  arise?  God 
created  him.  How  did  the  earth  come  to  be?  God 
created  it.  But  science  has  come  to  see  that  an  agent 
which  answers  every  question  in  this  easy-going  fashion 
does  not  really  answer  any  of  them.  It  is  a  verbal 
answer  and  does  not  give  us  any  specific  information. 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  107 

Investigation  is  gradually  showing  just  how  men  did 
arise  and  how  the  earth  once  formed  part  of  a  larger 
whole  from  which  it  was  whirled  off. 

The  only  valid  position  to  take  in  the  light  of  this 
retreat  of  the  biblical  view  of  the  world  is  to  accept  the 
evident  conclusion  that  those  who  wrote  the  various 
books  of  the  bible  told  the  beliefs  of  their  time.  Some 
half-hearted  converts  to  this  conclusion  try  to  take  the 
edge  off  the  admission  by  saying  that  the  bible  does  not 
teach  science.  Let  us  put  it  frankly  and  say  that  the 
bible  taught  the  knowledge  of  the  olden  days,  their  sci- 
ence, but  that  this  does  not  at  all  agree  with  what  we 
have  come  to  know  by  real  investigation. 

While  the  primitive  view  of  the  world  had  the  strength 
which  came  to  it  from  the  sincere  belief  of  Christians,  it 
struggled  valiantly  against  the  new  knowledge.  Unfor- 
tunately, Christians  were,  by  their  training,  dogmatists 
and  sought  to  silence  the  rising  whispers  of  doubt  by 
persecution,  rather  than  by  frank  appeal  to  fact  and 
reason.  Because  of  this  attitude,  there  developed  the 
tradition  of  antagonism  between  science  and  religion 
which  is  so  often  referred  to.  The  primitive  view  of  the 
world,  woven  into  historical  Christianity,  because  shot 
through  the  bible,  was  helpless  in  the  face  of  this  vigor- 
ous enemy  which  was  nourished  by  the  intellectual  adult- 
hood of  man.  Its  partisans  were  shocked  by  the  denial 
of  beliefs  that  seemed  to  them  bound  up  with  the  most 
sacred  and  important  facts.  What  could  be  more  natu- 
ral than  an  appeal  to  force  to  put  down  such  impious 
suggestions !  The  story  is  not  a  pleasant  one  but  it 
should  not  be  looked  upon  as  unexpected.  Christianity 
used  its  power  but  was  defeated.  The  fight  is  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  over;  the  primitive  view  of  the 


108        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

world  has  gone  forever  and  Christianity  is  in  the  throes 
of  the  effort  to  loosen  itself  from  it,  as  a  swimmer  tries 
to  free  himself  from  the  embrace  of  a  corpse  which 
would  drag  him  down. 

But  this  is  not  the  first  time  that  Christianity  has 
been  forced  to  give  up  a  belief  that  would  not  fit  in  with 
the  facts  of  a  wider  experience.  We  saw  that  the  early 
Christians  believed  in  the  coming  of  the  kingdom  of 
God  upon  earth  in  their  own  day  and  generation.  This 
hope  was  relinquished  by  the  Church  as  time  passed 
and  it  was  not  fulfilled.  The  date  of  the  great  change 
was  simply  postponed  indefinitely.  But  the  problem 
which  the  growth  of  modern  science  caused  could  not  be 
met  so  easily.  The  conflict  was  stern,  and  it  was  only 
after  defeat  stared  her  in  the  face  that  Christianity 
tried  to  adapt  herself  to  the  new  view  of  the  world. 

Were  this  adaptation  possible  simply  by  giving  up  the 
mythical  elements  in  the  bible  and  in  the  traditional 
theology,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  would  be  accom- 
plished. Many  protestant  denominations  have  prac- 
tically gone  thus  far.  There  is  reason  to  believe  that, 
sooner  or  later,  the  doctrine  of  the  virgin-birth,  with  its 
only  too  evident  dependence  upon  classic  mythology  and 
its  obvious  violation  of  biological  facts,  will  be  re- 
signed and  Jesus  acknowledged  to  have  been  born  as  all 
men  are.  We  moderns  see  no  shame  in  such  biological 
facts.  Since  historical  criticism  and  biology  point  in 
the  same  direction,  there  can  hardly  be  a  doubt  as  to 
the  outcome.  However  reluctantly,  Christianity  must 
yield  to  knowledge. 

Even  after  Christianity  has  surrendered  her  mythical 
envelope  and  resigned  herself  to  the  less  dramatic  and 
pictorial  account  of  the  beginning  and  end  of  things, 


SCIENCE  AND  THEOLOGY  109 

taught  by  modern  science,  she  is  not  secure.  The 
struggle  has  only  passed  from  the  outer  works  of  reli- 
gion to  its  very  citadel.  To  yield  the  nonessentials, 
which  were  the  wrappings  of  its  early  manhood,  to  this 
stern  seeker  after  knowledge,  in  the  hope  of  a  treaty  of 
peace,  will  only  lead  to  disappointment.  Because  of 
her  worship  of  the  book,  Christianity  has  set  too  high 
a  value  upon  beliefs  which  were  simply  doomed  to  de- 
struction. Hence  she  has  no  right  to  look  upon  her 
surrender  of  these  beliefs  as  an  act  of  great  merit.  It 
is  simply  a  preliminary  step  to  the  basic  conflict  be- 
tween science  and  religion.  The  question  which  con- 
fronts the  human  mind  at  the  present  time  concerns  the 
problem  of  the  harmony  or  disharmony  of  the  views  of 
the  world  essentially  connected  with  religion  and  science 
respectively.  Before  this  fundamental  problem,  these 
minor  conflicts  which  have  occupied  so  much  attention 
shrink  into  insignificance.  This  problem  involves  the 
character  of  the  agencies  at  work  in  the  universe.  Can 
science  admit  the  reality  of  a  special  providence  at 
work  in  the  world?  Let  us  see  to  what  issues  this  prob- 
lem leads. 


CHAPTER  IX 
THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY 

RELIGION  was  born  from  need  wedded  to  ignorance.  But 
needs  change,  and  illusions  fade  away  and  are  replaced 
by  knowledge.  That  religion  reflects  these  factors  of 
which  it  is  a  function  cannot  be  doubted.  Some  think- 
ers, who  have  sincerely  pondered  the  problem,  declare 
that  religion  will  only  be  transformed.  Others,  as 
earnest,  assert  that  it  will  disappear,  and  speak  of  the 
non-religion  of  the  future.  Is  not  the  question  in  large 
measure  one  of  definition?  That  man  will  continue  to 
evolve  ethically  can  scarcely  be  doubted,  but  it  can  be 
doubted  with  good  right  that  he  will  continue  to  seek  to 
fulfill  his  needs  by  rites  designed  to  enlist  superhuman 
agents  in  his  behalf.  Is  there  not  more  than  a  note  of 
skepticism  in  that  much-approved  saying:  "  God  helps 
those  who  help  themselves?"  Already,  man  is  begin- 
ning to  classify  his  needs  and  to  believe  that  his  ma- 
terial needs,  at  least,  can  best  be  met  by  industry  and 
knowledge.  He  supplicates  less  and  works  more.  Let 
us  not  forget  what  tremendous  economic  and  social 
changes  have  occurred  since  the  days  of  the  little,  help- 
less communities  that  lifted  up  praying  hands  to  their 
gods  lest  famine  and  war  destroy  them  completely.  To- 
day, man  does  more  harm  to  man  than  does  nature. 
The  face  of  things  has  changed  more  radically  than  we 
are  accustomed  to  realize.  Social  habits  and  beliefs 

110 


THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY     111 

cannot  fail  to  reflect  this  change.  It  may  very  well  be 
that  we  shall  be  forced  to  conclude  that  what  were,  in  a 
sense,  the  by-products  of  religion  have  become  all  that 
promises  to  survive  when  man  has,  indeed,  eaten  of  the 
fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge. 

We  have  seen  that  primitive  man  read  his  surround- 
ings in  the  light  of  his  own  consciousness.  Everywhere 
he  saw  the  evidence  of  will  and  anger,  desire  and  caprice. 
The  world  was  the  theater  of  personal  agents  not  so 
dissimilar  to  himself.  Technically,  we  should  speak  of 
this  outlook  as  anthropomorphic  animism.  Perhaps  a 
still  lower  stage  existed  in  which  things  are  full  of  mana 
or  a  mysterious  power  for  good  and  evil.  As  man  felt 
his  own  powerlessness  in  the  midst  of  tremendous,  and 
often  hostile  agencies,  which  overtopped  his  own  meager 
powers,  he  was  led  to  feel  the  desire  to  ally  himself 
with  these  agencies  and  propitiate  them  in  order  that  all 
might  be  well  with  him.  Man  was  ever  more  convinced 
that  his  own  life  was  bound  up  with  the  plans  of  the 
gods.  To  displease  them  was  to  incur  the  most  serious 
danger.  The  anger  of  Jove,  or  Neptune,  or  Asshur, 
or  Yahweh  was  not  easily  turned  aside  once  it  was 
kindled.  The  winds  which  threaten  shipwreck,  the  rains 
which  give  increase,  the  drouth  which  dries  up  the  earth, 
the  plague  which  brings  death  are  under  the  control  of 
the  gods ;  and  it  behooves  man  to  walk  warily  in  order 
not  to  offend  them.  Thus  was  the  path  set  in  which 
man  was  to  travel  until  he  reached  an  ethical  mono- 
theism. 

As  time  passed,  demons  and  gods  gave  way,  in  theory 
at  least,  to  the  sovereignty  of  one  powerful  deity  who 
gathered  to  himself  the  powers  and  activities  of  the  old 
multiplicity  of  agents  whom  man  had  worshipped  and 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

placated.  It  is  probable  that  this  movement  toward  a 
consciously  held  monotheism  reflected  the  changing  po- 
litical organization  of  society.  The  old  chaos  of  su- 
perhuman agents,  each  doing  what  was  right  in  his  own 
eyes,  gave  way  to  a  growing  heavenly  order  in  which 
one  powerful  agent  exerted  his  suzerainty  over  minor 
principalities.  Yet  monotheism  has  always  been  rela- 
tive, for  the  one  god  has  his  agents  of  subordinate  rank 
—  agents,  powers  and  intercessors  —  just  as  the  most 
absolute  monarch  has  his  ministers.  Political  imagina- 
tion cannot  go  beyond  its  source. 

Christianity  is  usually  regarded  as  the  best  type  of 
monotheism ;  yet  the  early  Church  Fathers  thought  of 
the  old  gods  as  demons  working  their  nefarious  will 
upon  man.  It  is  notorious  that  many  of  the  saints  of 
the  calendar  are  only  re-christened  pagan  deities 
adopted  by  the  Church  to  meet  popular  demands.  The 
peasantry  would  believe  in  the  agency  of  local  divini- 
ties whose  reputation  had  been  great  for  the  healing  of 
sickness,  or  the  granting  of  children  to  the  childless,  or 
the  causing  of  rain  to  fall  in  seasons  of  drouth ;  and  the 
Church,  wisely  enough,  controlled  and  adopted  what  it 
could  not  prevent.  The  old  pluralism  of  agencies  re- 
fused to  give  way  more  than  formally  to  a  single  agent. 
The  psychology  of  this  resistance  is  simple  enough. 
Just  as  the  king  is  unable  to  give  his  personal  attention 
to  the  requests  of  all  his  subjects  but  must  delegate  au- 
thority to  officers  to  look  after  details,  so  the  one  deity 
cannot  give  ear  and  attention  to  the  incessant  cries  of 
his  myriads  of  creatures.  I  cannot  help  feeling  that 
the  pious  catholic  has  more  psychological  realism  in 
these  matters  than  the  protestant  sectarian  who  wearies 
his  deity  with  all  sorts  of  trivial  matters.  Surely  a  mil- 


THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY      113 

lion  petitions  at  the  same  time  would  distract  any  con- 
ceivable kind  of  personal  deity ! 

But,  in  the  present  chapter,  we  are  not  concerned  so 
much  with  the  problem  of  the  number  and  inter-relations 
of  the  superhuman  agents  at  work  in  the  universe  as 
with  the  idea  of  personal  agency  itself.  The  point  I 
wish  to  call  attention  to  is  that  the  change  from  poly- 
theism to  monotheism  did  not  involve  any  essential  modi- 
fication of  the  accepted  notions  of  agency.  Nature  — 
and  human  life  with  it  —  was  thought  of  as  under  the 
control  of  a  superpersonal  agent  who  guided  the  course 
of  events  in  accordance  with  his  purposes.  An  ethical 
refinement  of  the  idea  of  deity  had  supervened  which 
lifted  it  far  above  the  crudities  of  the  so-called  nature- 
religions.  Was  this  not  because  man  and  human  soci- 
ety had  evolved  ethically  and  socially?  But  no  marked 
break  in  the  setting  of  the  idea  had  arisen.  And  this 
fact  presents  the  thinker  with  a  problem. 

In  its  origins,  religion  is  innately  hostile  to  the  ex- 
tension of  impersonal  causation  to  the  cosmos,  for  the 
obvious  reason  that  such  a  conception  conflicts  with  the 
operation  of  special  agency.  Religion  begins  with  the 
postulation  of  powerful  agents  whom  man  can  placate. 
Up  to  the  present,  the  evolution  of  religion  has  not  in- 
volved a  withdrawal  of  this  primary  assumption  but 
only  its  ethical  refinement  and  the  reduction  of  the  num- 
ber of  agents.  In  the  Western  world,  at  least,  religion 
and  the  idea  of  an  ethical  control  of  the  course  of  nature 
have  been  inseparable.  This  latter  idea  underlies 
prayer  for  material  blessings,  miracles,  and  the  vari- 
ous conceptions  of  providence.  Can  this  primary  as- 
sumption be  taken  from  religion  without  destroying 
it?  " 


114.        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

The  difficulties  which  confront  this  assumption  for 
the  educated  man  of  to-day  must  not  blind  us  to  its 
naturalness  in  the  past.  But  that  is  the  very  point  to 
grasp.  The  primitive  view  of  the  world  is  not  being 
so  much  refuted  as  outgrown.  Slowly  and  painfully, 
man  has  learned  that  events  are  conditioned  by  ante- 
cedents of  an  inflexible  character,  and  that  his  wishes 
and  desires  must  have  hands  and  feet  working  for  them 
before  they  can  affect  things.  He  has  bettered  his  con- 
dition through  invention  and  discovery  and  social  or- 
ganization. Of  course,  the  world  might  have  been  dif- 
ferent, and  moral  categories  might  have  been  the  proper 
ones  to  apply  to  nature ;  but  the  brute  fact  of  the  case 
is  that  our  particular  universe  is  not  of  that  sort. 

Once  given  the  notion  of  superhuman  agents  of  a  so- 
cial character,  the  after-development  of  religion  is  in- 
evitable. Man  adopts  toward  them  the  attitude  that  he 
takes  toward  his  own  rulers.  To  pray  to  the  gods  is  as 
natural  as  to  pray  to  those  who  have  power  and  who, 
we  hope,  may  be  moved  by  our  prayers.  Psychologi- 
cally, there  is  no  difference  in  the  attitude  involved. 
Providence  is  merely  the  action  of  an  agent  who  is  more 
than  human.  For  primitive  man  it  did  not  imply  an  in- 
tervention with  nature,  for  the  very  good  reason  that 
the  gods  were  active  in  nature.  Nature  was  the  sphere 
of  the  activities  of  the  gods  in  the  same  way  that  it  was, 
in  a  minor  degree,  the  sphere  of  the  activity  of  men. 
We  must  rid  ourselves  of  the  modern  conception,  nour- 
ished by  science,  of  nature  as  a  realm  of  causal  rela- 
tions. For  ages,  man  had  no  such  conception ;  all  ac- 
tivities were  thought  of  as  acts.  Nature,  man  and  the 
gods  acted  together  in  a  sort  of  social  whole.  Law,  as 
we  understand  the  term  in  science,  would  have  had  no 


THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY     115 

meaning  to  primitive  man  just  as  it  has  little  meaning 
for  many  at  the  present  day. 

It  is  very  interesting  to  study  the  development  of 
the  idea  of  providence.  It  means  foresight  and  the 
care  which  renders  foresight  praiseworthy.  The  more 
the  gods  were  given  character  and  identified  with  the  life 
of  the  community,  the  more  they  were  thought  of  as 
guardians  anxious  for  the  good  of  their  people.  As 
superhuman,  they  were  gifted  with  knowledge  of  events 
to  come  and  with  plans  for  the  welfare  and  happiness 
of  their  worshipers.  The  social  relations  of  the  gods 
inevitably  brought  them  into  transforming  touch  with 
the  ethical  progress  of  humanity.  They  became  ideals 
reflecting  back  the  highest  of  which  man  could  conceive. 

In  Christianity,  we  have  a  most  striking  instance  of 
this  ethical  transformation  of  the  one  deity  who  is  the 
superhuman  agent  par  excellence.  He  is  the  father, 
kindly  and  loving,  merciful  and  bountiful,  who  looks 
after  the  welfare  of  his  children  and  plans  their  indi- 
vidual lives  and  the  course  of  civilization.  The  evolu- 
tion of  God  on  its  ethical  side  has  reached  its  high  point. 
From  the  philosophical  side,  this  evolution  was  prac- 
tically a  foregone  conclusion.  Just  because  God  was 
conceived  socially,  he  could  not  escape  this  goal. 
Hosea  and  Jesus  took  the  direction  which  ethical  ideal- 
ists could  not  help  but  take. 

Let  us  examine  the  consequences  of  this  assumption 
of  an  omnipotent,  omniscient  and  ethically  perfect  agent 
who  acts  in  nature  and  in  human  history.  Simply  by 
deducing  the  implications  of  the  concept,  we  find  that  it 
involves  a  plan  for  the  world.  Such  a  plan  is  called 
by  theology  God's  providence.  For  one  who  accepts 
the  assumption,  the  only  sane  attitude  to  take  is  that 


116        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

of  submission  to  the  course  of  events  as  manifestations 
of  God's  will  and  wisdom.  The  heart  of  religion  thus 
becomes  a  joyous  acceptance  of  life's  portion  through  a 
willed  union  with  the  purposes  of  this  perfect  being. 
The  most  religious  souls  in  history  have  drawn  this 
conclusion  and  acted  it  out  in  their  lives.  In  this  way, 
they  taste  of  an  exaltation  similar  to  that  which  the 
patriot  experiences  when  he  identifies  himself,  without 
reservation,  with  the  hopes  and  plans  of  his  country  at 
some  time  of  crisis.  They  have,  moreover,  this  advan- 
tage that  disappointment  is  impossible,  since  they  can 
never  know  the  actual  plans  of  God  nor  the  time  when 
they  are  to  be  fulfilled.  If  they  anticipate  and  set 
their  heart  on  some  event  which  kindles  their  enthusiasm 
and  it  does  not  come  to  pass,  they  can  assuage  their 
disappointment  with  the  remembrance  that  God's  ways 
are  past  finding  out  and  that  he  has  an  eternity  in 
which  to  work.  From  the  very  nature  of  the  hypothe- 
sis, the  course  of  history  can  never  disprove  this  out- 
look which  is  the  logical  end-term  of  the  god-idea. 
This  impossibility  of  test  makes  it,  however,  unscien- 
tific. Nothing  can  be  deduced  from  it.  As  an  hypoth- 
esis, it  must  always  remain  unfruitful.  When  we  come 
to  treat  of  the  problem  of  good  and  evil,  we  shall  see 
other  difficulties  which  it  must  face. 

But  the  idea  of  a  grand  plan  from  which  God  cannot 
be  swerved  by  intercession  and  supplication  is  far  from 
the  thought  of  the  usual  level  of  religion.  It  is  the 
creation  of  reflective  thought,  and  does  not  find  a  ready 
welcome  in  the  minds  of  people  at  large.  For  them, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  complete  determination  of  the 
course  of  events.  God  is  a  powerful  agent  who  is  able 
to  bring  to  pass  what  he  wills  but  he  does  not  always 


THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY      117 

intervene  in  particular  cases  unless  he  is  asked.  It  is 
this  situation,  in  which  God  is  only  one  of  the  forces  at 
work  in  nature,  that  gives  the  setting  for  the  idea  of  a 
special  providence  and  the  answer  to  prayer.  Is  it  not 
evident  that  we  have  in  these  beliefs  the  expression  of 
personal  agency,  an  idea  continuous  with  mythology? 

There  are  many  examples  of  the  appeal  to  a  special 
providence  which  awaken  the  curiosity  of  the  modern 
man.  In  cases  of  severe  sickness,  prayer  for  restora- 
tion to  health  is  offered  in  the  churches  and  homes.  If 
God  is  a  personal  agent  affected  by  the  desires  of  his 
worshipers,  this  act  is  perfectly  logical.  Yet  the  na- 
ture of  sickness  is  now  so  well  known  that  we  see  in  it  a 
cause  and  effect  relation  of  a  definite  sort.  Knowledge 
of  impersonal  agency  is  undermining  the  faith  in  super- 
human agency.  Perhaps  the  fact  that  such  prayers 
have  never  stayed  a  plague,  while  active  measures  of  a 
scientific  sort  have  done  so,  has  had  something  to  do 
with  the  purely  formal  and  traditional  character  of 
such  prayers  among  civilized  men.  Another  instance 
which  has  caused  many  cynical  comments  is  the  appeal 
to  God  to  bring  victory  to  the  nation  in  time  of  war. 
Both  combatants  pray  to  the  same  deity  with  about 
equal  fervency  and,  at  the  same  time,  make  as  careful 
preparations  as  possible  for  the  actual  warfare.  The 
religious  ceremonies  appear  to  play  the  part  of  an  emo- 
tional accompaniment  for  the  grimmer  proceedings  on 
the  battle-field.  To  the  soldier,  God  stands  for  the  ele- 
ment of  chance ;  otherwise,  the  main  precept  is  to  keep 
the  powder  dry. 

When  we  enter  the  domain  of  science,  we  at  once  real- 
ize that  a  different  conception  of  agency  is  held.  The 
universe  is  regarded  as  a  closed  system  of  causal  rela- 


118        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

tions  which  spring  from  the  nature  of  its  parts.  It 
is  a  systematic  and  self-contained  world  whose  activities 
can  be  explained  by  the  discovery  of  laws  which  con- 
stantly hold  and  which  grow  out  of  the  stable  properties 
of  nature  itself.  As  the  result  of  a  close  and  accurate 
study  of  the  various  aspects  of  nature,  science  has  come 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  large  bulk  of  the  world  is 
lifeless  and  that  its  parts  react  in  habitual  or  mechan- 
ical ways  which  are  invariable.  The  planets  circle 
about  the  sun  in  accordance  with  the  pull  and  haul  of 
forces  which  work  in  the  same  direction  from  year  to 
year  and  lead  to  the  same  mathematically  describable 
result.  By  means  of  measurements  and  calculations, 
celestial  mechanics  has  been  able  to  predict  eclipses 
centuries  ahead  and  to  test  historical  records  in  regard 
to  those  which  happened  thousands  of  years  ago.  The 
paths  of  comets  have  been  calculated  and  their  return 
to  the  solar  system  foretold.  Thus  the  mass-move- 
ments of  the  universe  have  been  seen  to  be  mechanical 
in  nature  and  expressive  solely  of  the  energies  and  con- 
figurations distributed  throughout  its  parts.  The 
events  which  happen  are  inevitable  and  arise  out  of  the 
impersonal  agency  of  spatially  existent  things.  In 
what  sharp  contrast  is  this  view  of  nature  to  the  inter- 
pretation primitive  man  made  for  himself  when  he  read 
his  own  emotions  and  desires  into  the  things  around 
him.  Caprice  and  whim  have  no  place  in  this  regular 
procession  of  the  heavens. 

Impersonal  agency  conquered,  not  only  in  man's  con- 
ception of  the  larger  relations  of  bodies  to  one  another, 
but  also  in  his  idea  of  those  events,  like  sickness  and 
death,  which  strike  nearer  home.  While  the  agencies 
at  work  may  not  be  considered  mechanical,  they  are  yet 


THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY     119 

seen  to  be  natural  and  regular  in  their  working.  The 
characteristic  of  the  personal  agency  to  which  religion 
makes  appeal  is  that  it  disregards  space;  it  works  here 
and  there  at  its  own  will  and  leaps  across  intervening 
distances  as  though  they  had  no  reality.  Just  because 
it  is  spaceless,  it  is  supernatural.  It  cannot  be  local- 
ized and  brought  into  definite  relations  with  other 
things  in  the  universe.  The  more  we  conceive  the  uni- 
verse as  a  spatial,  self-contained  system  of  things  and 
processes,  the  more  it  excludes  the  presence  of  an 
agency  which  intervenes  in  it  but  is  not  really  of  it. 
So  long  as  events  can  be  explained  as  the  effects  of  the 
natural  working  of  things  in  nature,  the  assumption  of 
a  supernatural  agent  is  unmotived. 

The  conflict  between  science  and  religion  has  thus 
passed  beyond  the  stage  where  a  primitive  and  childish 
idea  of  the  extent  and  origins  of  the  visible  world  strug- 
gled against  a  more  rational  and  better-founded  out- 
look. No  educated  man  to-day  would  seriously  defend 
the  cosmical  theories  of  ancient  times.  It  is  simply 
absurd  to  deny  that  we  have  outgrown  them  once  and 
for  all.  But  this  first  victory  of  science  only  involved 
the  capture  of  the  weakest  outposts  of  the  religious 
view  of  the  world.  The  heart  of  traditional  religion 
seems  to  be  the  belief  in  a  personal,  superhuman  agency 
at  work  in  nature  or,  rather,  upon  nature.  Even  the 
religious  mind,  however,  admits  that  investigation  has 
shown  that  there  is  a  routine  aspect  to  nature  which 
covers  the  ordinary  course  of  events.  The  final  crux 
of  the  problem  comes,  then,  to  be  whether  there  is  good 
reason  to  believe  that  there  are  unusual  events  which 
cannot  be  accounted  for  by  natural  conditions.  The 
victorious  career  of  science  has  undoubtedly  cast  sus- 


120        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

picion  upon  the  occurrence  of  events  which  cannot  be 
explained  by  means  of  regular  changes  in  nature.  The 
appeal  to  superhuman,  personal  agency  to  account  for 
such  events  presupposes  their  occurrence,  while  the 
belief  in  their  occurrence  is  psychologically  based  upon 
the  acceptance  of  such  supernatural  agency.  Hence  it 
is  probable  that  both  beliefs  will  fall  together.  In  the 
meantime,  they  give  one  another  mutual  support.  He 
who  believes  in  supernatural  agency  is  the  more  likely 
to  be  credulous  in  regard  to  testimony  advanced  in  its 
favor. 

Nature  was  at  first  regarded  as  a  realm  in  which  per- 
sonal agency  ruled.  Yahweh  thundered  from  Sinai  and 
rode  in  the  tempest.  Apollo  guided  the  horses  of  the 
sun.  The  gods  did  things  in  nature  directly,  much  as 
man  does  them,  only  they  are  able  to  do  things  that 
man  cannot  do.  By  will  and  word  of  command,  they 
make  the  mountains  tremble  and  the  hills  to  shake. 
But  gradually  man  came  to  conceive  nature  as  a  self- 
contained  realm  in  which  parts  affected  one  another. 
We  owe  the  beginning  of  this  view  to  the  Greeks.  They 
developed,  from  the  first,  a  way  of  approach  to  events 
which  was  absolutely  opposed  to  the  older  outlook. 
As  nature  became,  for  man,  more  and  more  self- 
sufficient  and  capable  of  explaining  what  occurred  within 
it,  there  was  less  need  to  appeal  to  an  agent  of  the  old 
mythical  sort. 

Religion  is  rightly  anthropomorphic,  just  as  ethics 
is.  Man's  welfare  and  destiny  are  properly  and  inevi- 
tably the  important  questions  for  man,  and  he  naturally 
approached  the  world  with  these  problems  in  mind.  He 
used  personal  and  social  categories  in  his  vague  think- 
ing about  his  environment.  The  discovery  that  nature 


THE  LIMITS  OF  PERSONAL  AGENCY 

did  not  work  that  way  was  made  slowly  and  only  after 
comparative  civilization  had  brought  leisure  and  safety. 
Even  to-day,  the  intellectual  restraint,  which  the  appli- 
cation of  impersonal  and  non-moral  concepts  to  nature 
demands,  is  distasteful  to  the  majority.  But  this  re- 
straint will  become  less  and  less  as  man  is  introduced 
from  childhood  to  a  world  of  law  and  order  to  which  he 
can  adapt  himself  with  a  fair  measure  of  success.  His 
eyes  will  remove  themselves  from  far  horizons  and  turn 
to  the  world  around  him,  nor  will  he  dream  of  a  tran- 
scendent realm  of  which  earthly  things  are  only  the  ap- 
pearance and  veil.  He  will  seek  his  welfare  and  find  his 
destiny  among  his  fellows  during  the  normal  time  al- 
lotted to  his  species.  Banded  with  them,  he  will  become 
an  active  and  clear-eyed  worker  for  the  four  great 
blessings  which,  he  finds,  are  within  his  grasp,  health, 
knowledge,  goodness  and  beauty.  Many  virtues  and 
ideals  which  religion  has  sheltered  and  encouraged  will 
find  themselves  at  home  in  this  valiant  and  intelligent 
world,  but  the  religion  of  the  past  must  shed  many 
things  before  it  will  feel  in  harmony  with  its  new  set- 
ting. Will  sufficient  identity  remain  to  make  the  term 
still  significant  ?  Frankly,  it  is  very  hard  to  say  — 
impossible  to  say  with  certainty. 

What,  then,  are  the  limits  of  personal  agency?  The 
limits  set  to  that  incarnated  intelligence  which  organ- 
isms possess.  The  ability  to  re-direct  and  distribute 
the  energies  which  surround  them  in  accordance  with 
laws  which  study  reveals,  the  ability  to  build  dwellings 
for  shelter  and  for  adornment,  the  ability  to  use  medi- 
cines for  healing,  the  ability  to  drain  marshes,  dig 
canals,  girdle  the  earth  with  iron  roads,  the  ability  to 
conceive  things  of  beauty  and  to  translate  these  concep- 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

tions  into  sensuous  form,  all  these  abilities  are  theirs. 
Such  agency  works  within  nature  as  a  highly  gifted 
part  within  a  whole  to  which  it  is  not  alien.  But  expe- 
rience gives  us  no  hint  of  a  transcendent  agent  for  whom 
the  earth  is  as  a  footstool  and  who  whirls  stars  and 
planets  through  space  to  their  appointed  orbits. 


CHAPTER  X 
DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN? 

Do  miracles  happen?  I  am  often  asked  this  question 
by  young  people  who  are  trying  to  combine  religious 
tradition  with  modern  thought,  and  find  a  disharmony. 
Ecclesiastical  authority  urges  them  to  the  acceptance 
of  miracles,  while  the  principles  and  conclusions  of 
science  as  obviously  militate  against  any  such  belief. 
Many  halt  half-way  between  these  two  opinions  and 
drift  through  life  without  having  been  able  to  come  to 
a  decision.  In  their  moments  of  mysticism,  when  the 
past  religious  view  of  the  world  with  its  prestige  and 
emotional  appeal  gains  the  upper  hand,  they  are  per- 
suaded that  all  things  are  possible.  They  lose  sight 
of  nature  with  its  massive  constancy,  and  float  back 
into  the  sentiment  of  personal  agency  so  natural  to 
man.  As  they  listen  to  the  poetry  of  the  familiar  pas- 
sage read  by  the  clergyman,  their  memories  awaken,  and 
vague  hopes  for  they  know  not  what  are  stirred  to  a 
restless  life.  All  the  surroundings  and  accompani- 
ments reenforce  these  suggestions,  for  that  is  the 
transformed  purpose  of  modern  rites.  The  music 
throbs  in  their  ears,  now  plaintive  and  low,  now  burst- 
ing into  triumphant  peals.  Incense  fills  the  air,  and 
the  lights  burn  dimly.  Then  a  new  psychological  world 
is  created  within  them.  The  erstwhile  solid  earth  with 

its  blind  driving  power  becomes  transparent  and  a  thing 

123 


124        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

to  despise.  The  Lord  reigneth  to  Whom  all  things 
are  possible.  His  the  power  to  create  or  to  destroy, 
to  bind  or  to  loose,  to  wither  or  to  make  whole. 

The  next  day  in  the  laboratory,  perhaps,  the  same 
individuals  watch  the  circulation  of  the  blood  in  the 
thin  membrane  of  a  frog's  foot,  or  measure  the  trans- 
formation of  energy  in  a  chemical  reaction,  or  examine 
the  nerve-tissue  of  the  human  brain,  and  another  out- 
look forms  itself.  They  see  a  world  of  harmonious 
movements,  of  gigantic  forces,  of  delicate  adjustments, 
of  slow  birth  and  quick  decay.  The  sentiment  of  law, 
the  feeling  for  fact,  the  sense  of  nature  grow  upon  them. 
For  the  time  being,  they  are  the  conscious  spectators 
of  an  immense  reality  it  would  be  meaningless  to  set 
aside.  The  complexity  and  autonomy  of  nature  thrusts 
all  thought  of  superpersonal  agency  into  the  back- 
ground. Thus  the  pendulum  swings  back  and  forth 
from  supernaturalism  to  naturalism.  They  believe, 
and  yet  disbelieve.  What  answer  must  be  given  to  these 
troubled  minds  ? 

Now  the  question,  Do  miracles  happen?  presupposes 
a  single,  unambiguous  meaning  for  the  term,  miracle. 
Yet  to  secure  such  a  single  meaning  requires  an  effort. 
It  is  so  tempting  for  the  advocate  of  miracles  to  make 
qualifications  when  the  argument  goes  against  him,  to 
say  that  he  did  not  mean  an  act  of  a  supernatural  agent 
but  only  an  extraordinary  event,  something  marvelous 
and  not  easily  accounted  for.  We  shall  concern  our- 
selves primarily  with  what  may  be  called  a  theological 
miracle,  an  occurrence  confidently  assigned  to  the  will 
of  a  divine  agent.  Incidentally,  however,  we  shall  dis- 
cuss the  logical  attitude  to  take  toward  marvels  which 
cannot  easily  be  fitted  into  the  usual  scheme  of  events. 


DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN?  125 

To  understand  the  ideas  and  sentiments  associated 
with  our  term,  we  must  go  back  to  the  past.  We  are 
sufficiently  acquainted  by  now  with  the  setting  of  the  re- 
ligious view  of  the  universe  to  know  that  the  gods  were 
at  first  forces  m  nature  and  only  slowly  became  spir- 
itual agents  outside  of  nature.  We  cannot  too  often 
remember  that  man  had  no  instinctive  knowledge  of 
what  energies  operated  in  the  world  and  what  were 
the  conditions  of  their  operation.  He  peopled  woods 
and  fields  and  sky  with  invisible  agents  who  could  do 
almost  all  they  wanted  to  do,  and  with  no  hindrance 
from  distance.  We  may  put  it  this  way:  man  had  no 
idea  of  spatial  process  but  thought  of  all  events  as  acts 
of  will.  The  gods  had  mana,  or  power,  just  as  the  medi- 
cine man  had,  only  greater.  And  miracles  were,  for 
ages,  only  extraordinary  events  due  to  the  power  of 
gods  or  other  power-possessing  beings.  So  long  as  this 
primitive  view  of  things  was  prevalent,  miracles  were 
only  especially  significant  events  assigned  to  the  will 
of  the  gods.  They  were  events  which  transparently 
revealed  their  anger,  or  favor,  or  purposes.  There  was 
nothing  illogical  or  puzzling  about  them. 

The  forces  which  are  so  strongly  working  against 
the  acceptance  of  miracles  are  just  those  forces  which 
are  antagonistic  to  the  primitive  view  of  the  world.  If 
nature  is  a  self-contained  spatial  system,  the  complete 
mechanism  of  change  should  be  open  to  study.  Even 
human  wills  must  be  connected  with  human  bodies,  and 
shown  to  act  in  accordance  with  psychological  and 
physiological  laws.  In  the  place  of  such  vague  terms 
as  mana,  we  have  chemical  and  electrical  properties, 
bacterial  infection,  hypnosis.  Magic  and  miracle  are 
closely  connected ;  and  the  replacement  of  magic  by  sci- 


126        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

ence  put  miracles  on  the  defensive.  Nature  became  a 
realm  of  recurrent  processes.  The  exceptional,  alone, 
could  be  assigned  to  the  old  type  of  agency.  Thus  the 
contrast  came  out  more  clearly,  as  the  religious  view  of 
the  world  found  itself  opposed  to  an  orderly  conception 
of  natural  process.  Divine  agency,  on  the  one  hand; 
uniform  processes,  on  the  other. 

Etymologically,  a  miracle  is  something  which  awak- 
ens wonder  because  of  its  strangeness.  In  former  days, 
all  events  out  of  the  ordinary  were  naturally  classed  as 
miracles,  that  is,  as  events  to  be  wondered  at.  There 
was,  of  course,  a  routine  aspect  to  nature.  People 
expected  the  sun  to  rise  in  the  morning  and  pass  un- 
waveringly over  the  sky ;  they  looked  for  the  return  of 
the  seasons  and  had  festivals  to  celebrate  them;  they 
anticipated  normal  young  from  their  animals.  Thus 
the  routine  aspect  of  things  was  fairly  conspicuous, 
and  they  guided  themselves  by  reference  to  it.  But,  in 
those  days,  things  were  less  settled  than  they  are  in  our 
well-organized  society.  People  were  more  nervous,  as 
it  were,  more  surrounded  by  rumor,  more  credulous. 
Both  the  psychological  and  the  social  situation  favored 
tales  of  marvelous  events.  I  cannot  help  feeling  that 
the  religious  customs,  the  constant  appeal  to  the  gods 
for  favors  and  portents,  were  both  effects  and  causes 
of  this  sense  for  the  miraculous  which  we  find  so  wide- 
spread in  the  past.  Sometimes  monsters  were  born; 
sometimes  the  wind  blew  from  one  direction  for  an 
extraordinary  length  of  time;  sometimes  the  sun  was 
darkened  at  midday.  Stories  were  constantly  afloat 
about  wonderful  cures  imputed  to  gods  or  magicians. 
Credulity  awoke  at  the  least  encouragement.  Priests, 
prophets,  magicians,  kings,  gods,  all  were  regarded  as 


DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN?  127 

the  authors  of  cures.  Only  the  common  man  was  un- 
able to  do  these  wonderful  things.  The  idea  that  the 
king's  touch  had  wonderful  curative  power  lingered  on 
into  the  nineteenth  century. 

We  have  pointed  out,  more  than  once,  that  the  best 
way  to  explain  an  idea  away  is  to  explain  how  it  arose. 
Add  to  this  a  clear  statement  of  how  the  older  view  con- 
flicts with  the  new  outlook  which  has  been  born  of  tested 
knowledge,  and  the  disproof  is  as  complete  as  may  be. 
Let  us  apply  this  method  to  the  stories  told  of  Jesus  in 
the  New  Testament.  Jesus  was  reputed  to  have  the 
gifts  of  an  exorcist.  That  Jesus,  if  he  did  actually 
live,  believed  in  demons  cannot  be  doubted.  In  Mark, 
the  crowd  exclaims :  "  With  authority  he  commands 
even  the  unclean  spirits,  and  they  obey  him."  Again, 
the  scribes  from  Jerusalem  say :  "  He  hath  Beelzebub. 
By  the  prince  of  the  devils  he  casteth  out  the  devils." 
Wherever  Jesus  went,  crowds  of  sick  people  flocked  to 
him  to  be  healed  of  their  various  complaints.  But  they 
undoubtedly  did  the  same  to  every  prophet  or  medicine- 
man who  came  along.  A  man  could  not  be  a  prophet 
if  he  did  not  have  a  special  mana,  or  power,  either  in 
his  own  right  or  as  the  representative  of  his  deity. 
And  we  must  not  think  of  these  healers  as  charlatans 
or  imposters.  Everybody  believed  that  disease  was  a 
matter  for  religion.  Why?  Because  they  did  not 
know  anything  about  toxins  and  bacteria  and  amoebic 
infection.  The  demon-theory  of  disease  was  every- 
where dominant  outside,  perhaps,  certain  circles  in 
Greece.  "  It  is  beyond  a  doubt,"  writes  F.  C.  Cony- 
beare,  "  that  Jesus  regarded  fever,  epilepsy,  madness, 
deafness,  blindness,  rheumatism,  and  all  the  other  weak- 
nesses to  which  flesh  is  heir,  as  the  distinct  work  of  evil 


128       THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

spirits.  The  storm-wind  which  churned  the  sea  or  in- 
land lake  into  fury  is  equally  an  evil  spirit  in  the  Gospel 
story.  In  the  Vedic  poems  it  is  the  same ;  and,  indeed, 
we  have  here  a  commonplace  of  all  folklore." 

The  stories  told  about  Jesus  in  tihe  synoptic  gospels 
can  be  paralleled  in  the  literature  of  the  time  through- 
out the  Roman  world.  The  use  of  spittle  as  a  sov- 
ereign remedy  was  universal.  In  his  essay  upon  mira- 
cles, Hume  called  attention  to  the  story  told  about  the 
Emperor  Vespasian  by  Tacitus.  Vespasian  was  a  little 
more  careful  than  Jesus,  for  he  had  physicians  examine 
the  eyes  of  the  blind  suppliant  before  he  exerted  his 
touch  and  spittle  as  healing  agents.  But,  then,  Jesus 
could  not  be  so  careful  about  such  things  as  an  emperor. 

When  we  once  clearly  realize  the  emotional  atmos- 
phere of  the  times  and  the  complete  lack  of  the  sort  of 
intellectual  background  we  possess,  we  are  not  surprised 
either  at  the  recorded  acts  of  Jesus  or  at  the  myths 
which  grew  up  around  his  figure.  The  absence  of  mira- 
cles from  the  New  Testament  would  be  far  more  sur- 
prising than  is  their  presence. 

The  miracles  attributed  to  Jesus  are  of  two  main 
kinds,  the  expulsion  of  demons  as  a  means  of  curing 
ills  and  allegorical  fulfillments  of  supposed  Old  Testa- 
ment prophecies.  The  first  kind  has  been  sufficiently 
examined.  The  second  can  be  touched  upon  only 
briefly.  It  has  been  one  of  the  main  contributions  of 
the  higher  criticism  to  point  out  how  much  of  the  life 
of  Jesus  is  built  up  around  passages  in  the  Septuagint 
or  Greek  version  of  the  Old  Testament. 

I  do  not  think  that  I  am  going  too  far  when  I  assert 
that  the  presence  of  these  tales  in  the  sacred  literature 
of  Christianity  has  done  an  incalculable  amount  of 


DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN?  129 

harm.  They  have  given  a  sanction  to  all  sorts  of  su- 
perstitious beliefs  and  have  helped  to  carry  over  into 
our  day  an  outlook  which  would  otherwise  have  been 
more  quickly  cast  off.  Had  it  not  been  for  the  miracles 
related  in  the  gospels,  there  would  have  been  no  problem 
of  miracles  to  discuss.  The  idea,  itself,  would  have 
been  outgrown  and  have  died  a  natural  death.  And,  in 
the  long  run,  that  is  what  must  take  place.  As  a  saner 
view  of  Jesus  is  taken  and  a  better  knowledge  of  the 
outlook  of  the  time  in  which  he  lived  is  gained,  the 
recorded  miracles  will  be  explained,  not  as  actual  events, 
but  as  actual  beliefs. 

Another  period  deserves  study  in  this  connection. 
When  one  examines  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
one  gains  the  conviction  that  miracles  formed  the  staple 
emotional  diet  of  the  people.  They  played  the  part 
that  novels  and  detective  stories  do  now.  Man  is  nat- 
urally dramatic  in  his  interpretation  of  life,  and  what 
can  be  more  thrilling  than  a  miracle?  Constance,  the 
heroine  of  the  Man  of  Law's  Tale  in  Chaucer,  is  rescued 
from  death  when  in  most  perilous  plight  by  that  Un- 
seen Hand  which  frustrates  the  plots  of  the  wicked. 
Skepticism  and  realism  are  slowly  acquired  habits  of 
mind.  The  primary  impulse  is  to  believe.  And,  when 
religious  motives  and  traditions  enter  to  strengthen  the 
sway  of  this  impulse,  it  is  hard  to  counteract.  When 
learned  theologians  enunciate  the  principle,  "  I  believe 
because  it  is  absurd,"  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  that 
the  mass  of  the  people  believe  because  they  do  not  see 
that  it  is  absurd.  For  ages,  the  world  was  a  sort  of 
quicksand,  and  it  has  taken  far  more  courage  and  sheer 
intellectual  capacity  and  moral  daring  than  the  mass 
of  the  people  will  ever  conceive  to  build  dykes  out  into 


130        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

the  unknown  and  rescue  it  for  the  empire  of  unswerving 
law. 

But  we  must  pass  from  the  historical  study  of  mira- 
cles to  the  systematic,  or  philosophical,  aspect  of  the 
matter.  The  philosophy  of  miracles  breaks  up  into 
two  parts,  the  laws  of  evidence  and  proof,  and  the 
nature  of  cause.  The  first  part  may  be  called  logical ; 
the  second,  metaphysical. 

Theological  miracles  involve  two  elements,  the  fact 
and  the  theory.  It  is  only  after  the  fact  has  been  suffi- 
ciently proven  that  its  cause  can  come  into  question. 
It  is  absurd  to  explain  facts  either  by  natural  processes 
or  by  the  will  of  God  until  you  are  certain  that  these 
events  were  actual  occurrences.  If  a  child  took  Alice 
in  Wonderland  too  seriously  and  asked  me  to  explain 
"  Why  the  sea  is  boiling  hot,"  I  would  be  compelled  to 
disappoint  its  craving  for  explanation.  Now  I  am 
certain  that  the  situation  in  regard  to  miracles  is  not 
much  otherwise.  Were  the  alleged  facts  to  be  proven 
beyond  reasonable  doubt,  the  need  for  a  genuine  ex- 
planation would  press  upon  us.  But  the  history  of  the 
subject  points  in  the  other  direction. 

The  logic  of  evidence  concerns  itself  with  the  tests 
applied  to  statements  which  purport  to  be  facts. 
What  reason  have  we  to  believe  in  those  stories  which 
have  been  handed  down  to  us  from  the  past,  or  in  the 
tales  of  marvelous  cures  and  visions  spread  abroad  in 
certain  circles  to-day?  Is  it  not  evident  that  we  must 
apply  to  them  the  same  stringent  tests  that  the  scientist 
employs?  All  the  canons  of  evidence,  external  and  in- 
ternal, must  be  brought  to  bear  upon  them.  Accounts 
of  cures  in  connection  with  the  shrines  of  saints  and 
the  descriptions  of  cases  of  healing  among  Christian 


DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN?  131 

Scientists  should  be  subjected  to  rigorous,  yet  equita- 
ble, examination.  The  nature  of  the  sickness  or  injury 
should  be  diagnosed,  and  the  after-history  kept  under 
observation.  And,  unless  these  religious  bodies  wish 
to  incur  the  suspicion  of  abetting  fraud,  they  should 
welcome  thorough  inquiry.  Until  something  of  this 
kind  is  done,  the  evidential  value  of  the  accounts  is 
weaker  than  it  must  be  to  reach  proof.  The  more  the 
adduced  narratives  conflict  with  the  usual  course  of 
experience,  the  more  does  this  lack  of  ventilation  weaken 
their  evidential  worth.  From  the  standpoint  of  logic, 
this  attitude  is  incontestable.  Either  we  must  main- 
tain it  or  we  must  give  up  all  serious  attempt  to  sift 
testimony. 

The  advances  made  by  history  and  psychology  dur- 
ing the  nineteenth  century  have  put  us  in  a  far  better 
position  to  handle  the  question  of  past  marvels  than 
Hume  was  in.  Yet  this  more  concrete  outlook  has  sim- 
ply reenforced  Hume's  method  of  criticism.  Hume 
was,  perhaps,  a  little  too  generous.  The  burden  of 
proof  rests  upon  the  believer  in  marvels,  rather  than 
upon  the  critic,  because  the  regularity  of  experience 
has  been  increasingly  established.  Hence,  the  histori- 
cal evidence  must  be  very  strong,  stronger  than  it  has 
turned  out  to  be. 

When  the  canons  of  historical  evidence  are  applied 
to  the  accounts  of  marvelous  events,  it  is  surprising 
how  quickly  they  lose  their  impressiveness.  Let  us 
take,  for  example,  the  astounding  series  of  incidents 
told  in  Exodus.  Were  this  book  written  by  Moses,  an 
actual  eye-witness  and  chief  actor  on  the  human  side, 
we  would  be  forced  to  assert  that  he  was  self-deceived, 
or  intended  to  deceive,  or  that  the  events  actually  did 


132        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

happen  in  some  strange  sort  of  way.  But  when  we  dis- 
cover that  the  Pentateuch  was  not  written  until  long 
after  the  establishment  of  the  Kingdom,  and  that  it 
contains  various  strands  of  popular  tradition  and 
priestly  construction,  we  realize  that  the  logical  situa- 
tion is  very  different.  The  eye-witness  has  disap- 
peared. In  other  words,  we  have  to  deal  with  legends 
instead  of  with  history.  We  are  no  longer  reduced  to 
the  dilemma  of  either  calling  Moses  a  liar  or  accepting 
events  which  strike  us  as  mythical.  We  are  not  even 
called  upon  to  rationalize  these  legends  and  to  appeal, 
say,  to  the  influence  of  a  high  wind,  long  continued, 
upon  some  shallow  branch  of  the  Red  Sea.  Such  in- 
genuity is  now  seen  to  be  misplaced. 

When  we  pass  from  past  to  present,  we  must  keep 
to  the  same  logical  methods.  In  fact,  we  must  often 
pass  from  the  present  to  the  past.  It  was  Lyell,  the 
famous  geologist,  who  established  the  scientific  canon 
that  the  same  forces  that  are  working  to-day  must  be 
used  to  explain  what  occurred  in  other  ages.  And  this 
canon  was  of  immense  value,  for  it  prevented  scientists 
from  dreaming  of  catastrophes  and  forgetting  to  study 
the  detailed  working  of  common  forces.  How  far  faith 
in  Jesus  as  a  religious  healer,  a  powerful  prophet  sent 
by  God,  led  to  what  are  called  faith-cures  can  be  an- 
swered only  by  analogy  from  the  present.  The  nature 
and  reach  of  mental  cures  must  be  studied  with  the 
same  care  that  is  given  to  other  fields.  Only  lately  is 
this  being  done.  Physicians  did  not  do  justice  to  the 
nervous  system.  Their  materialism  was  too  naive,  too 
mechanical.  The  individual  is  an  organic  whole,  and 
the  mind  cannot  be  severed  from  this  whole  without 
falsity.  Put  in  physiological  terms,  the  nervous  system 


DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN?  133 

controls  the  expenditure  of  energy  of  the  organism, 
and,  if  it  is  wasteful,  can  soon  exhaust  the  supply. 
The  resistance  offered  by  the  organism  to  disease  is, 
then,  likely  to  vary  with  the  mental  and  nervous  bal- 
ance of  the  individual.  How  effective  an  abnormal  di- 
rection of  nervous  energy  toward  certain  parts  of  the 
organism  may  be  cannot  be  told  beforehand.  Prob- 
ably, experimental  work  with  hypnosis  and  psycho- 
analysis will  throw  light  upon  these  internal  adjust- 
ments. The  historian  of  religious  history  should  keep 
his  eye  upon  the  recent  developments  of  psychiatry. 
He  should,  moreover,  learn  his  psychology  from  experts 
and  not  be  satisfied  with  the  jargon  of  spiritualists. 

But  logic  alone  will  never  be  able  to  disprove  theo- 
logical miracles.  I  cannot  prove  that  there  are  no 
fairies,  although  I  can  show  that  there  is  no  good  evi- 
dence for  belief  in  their  existence.  The  rationalist  who 
undertakes  to  demonstrate  the  impossibility  of  miracles 
forgets  that  his  thinking  works  within  a  set  of  postu- 
lates and  principles  which  his  adversary  will  not  accept. 
All  he  can  really  show  is  that  his  postulates  and  princi- 
ples fit  in  better  with  experience  than  do  those  of  his 
adversary.  The  final  conflict  is  that  between  the  primi- 
tive view  of  the  world  and  the  scientific  view.  The  best 
that  can  be  done  is  to  stress  the  logical  side  and  then 
make  the  contrast  between  the  two  views  of  the  world  as 
distinct  as  possible.  Whether  an  individual  will,  or  will 
not,  believe  in  religious  miracles  depends  ultimately  upon 
the  view  of  the  world  which  grows  up  in  his  mind.  And 
this  mental  outlook  is  a  function  of  his  training  and  his 
psychological  make-up. 

The  theological  miracle  is  more  deductive  than  in- 
ductive. I  mean  that  it  is  a  consequence  of  a  dogma 


134.        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

rather  than  an  independently  given  fact.  The  reli- 
gious outlook  comes  first  in  order  and  dominates  the 
fact.  Just  the  opposite  is  the  case  in  science.  There 
the  fact  comes  first  and  the  theory  afterwards.  As  I 
have  written  in  my  Logic :  "  Mere  speculation  uncon- 
trolled by  fact  is  almost  certain  to  lose  touch  with  real- 
ity. It  may  lead  to  the  construction  of  beautiful  sys- 
tems, but  these  systems,  for  all  their  splendor  and 
subtlety,  are  sure  to  lack  value  as  means  of  interpreting 
the  world  in  which  we  actually  live."  But  is  not  the 
theological  miracle  an  instance  of  just  such  uncon- 
trolled speculation?  An  omnipotent  God  could  do 
anything  to,  or  in,  his  footstool.  Of  course  he  could. 
You  are  only  developing  the  implications  of  your  hy- 
pothesis. The  test  questions  are,  first,  Is  it  his  nature 
to  want  to  do  these  abrupt  things?  second,  Is  this 
conception  of  an  omnipotent  God  the  most  satisfactory 
hypothesis?  Does  it  help  us  to  meet  the  facts  and 
events  of  human  life?  We  know  how  the  idea  arose, 
and  we  know  that  it  was  based  on  interpretations  of 
nature  that  seem  to  us  now  essentially  illusory.  The 
rub  of  the  matter  is,  that  it  is  of  no  assistance  to  sci- 
ence and  creates  hosts  of  artificial  difficulties.  We  have 
been  discussing  one  of  these  artificial  problems  in  the 
present  chapter  and  shall  be  engaged  in  the  discussion 
of  others  in  the  next  two  chapters.  A  naturalistic 
metaphysics  and  ethics  is  far  easier  to  formulate  than 
a  theological  system  free  from  contradiction. 

But  suppose  that  certain  marvels  which  would  not  fit 
into  the  natural  course  of  things  were  established. 
How  could  it  be  shown  that  these  peculiar  events  were 
the  acts  of  a  supernatural  agent?  Strictly  speaking, 
only  revelation  could  accomplish  this  feat.  But  revela- 


DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN?  135 

tion  is,  itself,  a  miracle  which  needs  accrediting.  And 
so  you  are,  once  more,  in  a  vicious  circle.  Revelation 
might  be  a  well-accredited  mode  of  proof  if  it  had  an 
organ  of  a  public  character  —  a  voice  from  heaven,  for 
instance.  But  such  a  voice  would  become  a  part  of 
nature  for  us ;  in  other  words,  its  assumption  implies 
another  sort  of  world  from  the  one  we  are  in.  But, 
until  this  organ  is  established,  we  have  good  right  to 
doubt  the  ipse  dixit  of  self-appointed  oracles. 

When  we  examine  the  whole  question  of  miracles  in- 
ductively and  deductively,  I  think  that  we  must  ac- 
knowledge that  their  basis  is  exceedingly  weak.  Al- 
ready, the  educated  world  is  in  a  fair  way  to  outgrow 
them;  and  this  tendency  wih1  undoubtedly  increase  as 
science  continues  to  explore  the  world  we  live  in. 

In  conclusion,  it  seems  worth  while  to  call  attention 
to  the  fact  that  very  few  people  realize  what  they  are 
really  believing  when  they  accept  miracles.  They  do 
not  know  enough  about  nature  to  grasp  the  real  con- 
tent of  their  beliefs ;  and,  until  they  do,  their  belief  rep- 
resents simply  a  point  of  view  which  has  not  been  con- 
fronted with  its  implications.  It  expresses  innocence 
rather  than  virtue.  Let  us  glance  at  a  couple  of  the 
biblical  miracles  to  show  what  they  involve. 

Tyndall  has  brought  out,  very  strikingly,  the  differ- 
ence between  the  miracle  supposed  to  have  aided  Joshua 
in  his  battle  with  the  Amorites,  as  this  appeared  in  the 
eyes  of  an  Israelite  of  old,  and  as  it  appears  to  a  man 
of  science.  For  the  one  the  miracle  probably  consisted 
in  the  stoppage  of  a  fiery  ball  less  than  a  yard  in  diam- 
eter, while  to  the  other  it  would  be  the  stoppage  of  an 
orb  fourteen  thousand  times  the  earth  in  size.  "  There 
is,"  he  writes,  "  a  scientific  as  well  as  a  historic  imagina- 


136        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

tion;  and  when,  by  the  exercise  of  the  former,  the 
stoppage  of  the  earth's  rotation  is  clearly  realized,  the 
event  assumes  proportions  so  vast,  in  comparison  with 
the  result  to  be  obtained  by  it,  that  belief  reels  under 
the  reflection.  The  energy  here  involved  is  equal  to 
that  of  six  trillion  of  horses  working  for  the  whole  of 
the  time  employed  by  Joshua  in  the  destruction  of  his 
foes."  If  we  pass  from  the  great  to  the  small,  from 
the  employment  of  tremendous  forces  to  the  reconstruc-. 
tion  of  endless,  minute  relations,  the  same  divergence 
between  superficial  appearance  and  the  reality  stares  us 
in  the  face.  Let  us  consider  the  raising  of  Lazarus 
from  the  dead.  It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  the  nerv- 
ous system  begins  to  disintegrate  very  quickly  after 
death.  Now  research  has  shown  that  there  are  nearly 
a  billion  of  cells  in  the  brain  alone.  Think  of  the  dis- 
organization which  would  ensue  in  such  a  complicated 
system  after  a  period  of  four  days.  Those  who  are 
acquainted  with  the  delicacy  of  organic  compounds  can 
realize  the  condition  of  the  brain  when  the  body  was 
already  beginning  to  stink.  But  the  ancients  did  not 
even  know  that  the  brain  was  closely  connected  with 
consciousness,  let  alone  its  structure.  Of  the  character 
of  the  economy  of  the  body,  they  knew  practically  noth- 
ing; they  dealt  with  wholes,  not  with  parts.  How  dif- 
ferent this  miracle  appears  from  these  two  stand- 
points !  It  is  the  same  only  in  name.  It  may  be  of 
interest  to  note  that  this  miracle,  characteristic  of 
John,  is  very  evidently  related  to  illustrate  the  principle 
that  Jesus  as  the  Logos  is  the  resurrection  and  the  life. 
It  is  a  demonstration  miracle. 

Our   answer    to    the    question,    Do  miracles  happen? 
must  be  in  the  negative.     While  there  is  nothing  irra- 


DO  MIRACLES  HAPPEN?  137 

tional  in  the  idea  in  itself,  it  does  not  fit  the  world  as 
experience  presents  it.  The  assertion  that  God  per- 
forms miracles,  like  the  similar  assertion  that  he  created 
the  world,  is  purely  hypothetical  and  unverifiable. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY 

THE  hope  of  immortality  is  an  essential  feature  of 
practically  all  modern  religions.  Even  those  oriental 
religions  which  lack  its  clear  presence  postulate  a  dim 
kind  of  personal  continuity.  Buddhism  has  always 
been  a  puzzle  to  the  optimistic  Westerner  who  is  in  love 
with  himself  and  does  all  his  thinking  in  terms  of  per- 
sonality and  personal  relations.  The  idea  of  re-birth  in 
accordance  with  a  rigid  moral  law  is  alien  to  his  tradi- 
tions ;  while  the  impersonalism  of  the  whole  process 
leaves  him  cold.  It  is  not  untrue  to  the  facts  to  call 
Buddhism  an  atheistic  religion.  Yet  it  is  a  religion 
because  it  postulates  the  objective  efficacy  of  moral 
categories.  Freedom  from  the  wheel  of  re-birth  is 
gained  by  the  Eightfold  Path  of  right  beliefs  and  right 
acts.  Enough  of  the  idea  of  a  soul  and  enough  of  the 
idea  of  immortality  exists  even  in  this  religion  to  make 
these  assumptions  important.  But  what  have  modern 
science  and  philosophy  to  say  about  these  age-old 
ideas?  Is  the  soul  any  longer  in  favor? 

Here,  again,  an  historical  approach  is  worth  while, 
because  it  gives  the  proper  perspective.  If  we  can 
understand  why  people  in  the  past  developed  and  fos- 
tered these  ideas,  we  can  judge  their  reasons  pretty 
objectively,  even  though  we  realize  that  we  have  been 
strongly  affected  by  the  beliefs  erected  upon  them. 

138 


THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY        139 

Destroy  the  roots  of  a  tree  and  the  foliage  will  wither 
before  long.  Has  science  dug  so  sharply  around  the 
roots  of  these  old  beliefs  that  they  are  bound  to  decay? 
The  subject  is  an  extremely  interesting  one. 

A  belief  in  some  sort  of  an  after-life  is  wide-spread. 
It  is  common  knowledge  that  the  American  Indians 
spoke  of  a  happy  hunting-ground  in  the  West,  in  which 
the  soul  of  the  warrior  would  rejoice  in  abundance  of 
game.  Other  peoples  thought  of  the  abode  of  the  dead 
as  in  the  East  where  the  sun  arises.  Still  others  taught 
that  it  was  in  the  sun  or  the  other  heavenly  bodies,  or 
underneath  the  earth  in  a  subterranean  region.  We 
are  seldom  able  to  determine  the  motives  which  led  to 
these  varying  locations. 

All  sorts  of  beliefs  flourished  in  the  Mediterranean 
basin  a  few  centuries  before  our  era ;  but  the  drift  of 
religious  thought  was  moving  rapidly  toward  a  passion- 
ate acceptance  of  another  life  somewhere  in  the  heav- 
ens. Immortality  was  taking  on  a  more  vivid  coloring 
and  was  being  transformed  from  a  passive  survival  to 
an  event  of  marked  religious  significance.  New  ethical 
motives  were  attaching  themselves  to  an  old  tendency 
and  modifying  it  almost  beyond  recognition.  The  sen- 
timents and  rituals  built  up  around  the  ideas  of  sin  and 
salvation  were  reflected  into  the  next  world  and  created 
the  vision  of  a  heaven  and  hell.  What  a  rich  field  this 
was  for  the  mythopeic  imagination  to  exploit !  And 
what  an  interesting  sociological  fact  is  it  that  the 
human  imagination  has  always  been  more  fertile  in  its 
descriptions  of  hell  than  in  its  descriptions  of  para- 
dise! 

But  a  few  words  ought  to  be  said  about  the  earlier 
conceptions  of  an  after-life.  Both  the  Greeks  and  the 


140        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

Hebrews  thought  of  the  other-world  as  a  joyless  reflec- 
tion of  the  present.  Death  was,  to  all  intents,  the  end 
of  what  really  counted.  Those  who  deny  that  men  can 
live  nobly  without  the  hope  of  immortality  forget  that 
men  like  Pericles  were  unaffected  by  that  phantom 
dream.  Even  the  great  Hebrew  prophets  extolled  right- 
eousness without  the  promise  of  a  reward  in  the  next 
world.  What  men  have  done,  we  can  surely  do  again. 
The  Greek  father  felt  himself  a  member  of  a  family 
whose  traditions  and  loyalties  he  wished  to  hand  on 
intact.  For  himself,  he  desired  only  the  customary 
funeral  rites  so  that  his  shade  might  rest  in  peace. 
In  the  house  of  Hades  dwell  the  senseless  dead,  the 
phantoms  of  men  outworn.  The  answer  of  Achilles  to 
Ulysses,  when  that  wanderer  visits  him  in  the  under- 
world, expresses  this  shadowy  after-life  admirably: 
"  Nay,  speak  not  comfortably  to  me  of  death,  oh  great 
Ulysses.  Rather  would  I  live  on  ground  as  the  hire- 
ling of  another,  with  a  landless  man  who  had  no  great 
livelihood,  then  bear  sway  among  all  the  dead  that  be 
departed."  The  Homeric  Greeks  rejoiced  in  life  like 
youths  whom  everything  pleases.  The  shadowy  realm 
of  Hades  was  felt  to  be  a  mockery  of  the  sunlit  world. 
The  history  of  the  belief  in  an  after-life  among  the  He- 
brews is  very  similar.  Yet  it  is  surprising  to  notice 
how  few  remark  the  paucity  of  reference  to  this  idea  in 
the  Old  Testament.  In  the  book  of  Isaiah  occurs  that 
account  of  Sheol  to  which  attention  was  called  in  an 
earlier  chapter :  "  Sheol  from  beneath  is  moved  for 
thee  to  meet  thee  at  this  coming.  .  .  .  All  they  shall 
answer  and  say  unto  thee,  Art  thou  become  weak  as 
we?"  The  passage  is  a  tremendous  one,  full  of  the 
most  biting  irony  and  vindictive  hatred.  This  concep- 


THE  SOUL  AND. IMMORTALITY        141 

tion  of  Sheol  evidently  scarcely  differs  from  the  corre- 
sponding one  of  the  Homeric  Greek.  Toward  the 
Christian  era,  as  a  result  of  the  infiltration  of  the  beliefs 
current  among  surrounding  peoples,  the  idea  of  a 
future  life  took  hold  of  the  Jews.  The  Pharisees,  the 
popular  party  of  the  day,  stressed  the  dogma,  while  the 
Sadducees,  the  Aristocratic  party,  denied  it. 

Early  religion  was  largely  a  state  affair,  for  it  con- 
cerned itself  with  the  safety  of  the  social  group ;  but  it 
was  rapidly  becoming  an  engrossing  concern  for  the 
individual.  The  religious  imagination  was  busily 
painting  another  world  and  connecting  it  with  the  re- 
lations of  the  individual  to  divine  powers.  Given  the 
religious  view  of  the  world,  what  an  instrument  of 
appeal  and  of  dread  this  conception  of  immortality 
was !  The  shadow  and  sunshine  of  another  world  lay 
athwart  this  one.  Endless  vistas  of  pain  and  pleasure 
stretched  into  the  future.  No  wonder  that  the  true 
means  of  salvation  became  the  burning  question !  From 
the  beginning,  Christianity  emphasized  the  fact  of  an- 
other world  and  its  terrific  meaning  for  the  soul  of 
man,  adopting  as  an  inheritance  the  current  views  with 
regard  to  a  Messianic  kingdom  and  a  place  of  torment. 
Paul  even  goes  so  far  as  to  proclaim  the  cynical  alter- 
native :  "  If  the  dead  are  not  raised,  let  us  eat  and 
drink,  for  to-morrow  we  die." 

The  ideas  of  immortality  and  salvation  were  the  cen- 
tral features  of  the  great  religious  revival  which  swept 
over  the  Roman  Empire  about  the  time  of  the  rise  of 
Christianity.  The  desire  for  personal  safety  in  this 
world  and  the  next  moved  men.  Fear  and  hope  worked 
together;  fear  of  the  terrors  awaiting  the  soul  after 
death,  hope  of  a  happy  existence  in  some  paradise. 


142        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

That  early  Christianity  owed  much  of  its  success  to  its 
doctrines  of  final  things  cannot  be  denied.  It  was  a 
period  of  astrology,  theosophy,  mysticism,  cults  of 
saviors,  eschatologies.  Few  were  able  to  keep  their 
heads  above  this  tide  of  oracular  mythology  and  super- 
stition. What  moorings  did  they  have?  None  of  that 
tested  knowledge  of  the  physical  world  which  we  possess, 
and  which  keeps  numbers  of  people  fairly  sane  to-day 
in  spite  of  themselves.  When  we  recall  the  terror  at 
Salem  a  few  centuries  ago,  we  must  admit  that  these 
Greeks,  and  Romans,  and  Jews,  and  Syrians  did  not  con- 
duct themselves  so  badly  in  the  demon-ridden  world  in 
which  they  lived.  Yet,  while  it  would  be  unfair  to  blame 
those  who  embraced  the  various  cults,  it  would  be 
equally  unfair  not  to  give  praise  to  those  few  enlight- 
ened souls  who  would  approve  none  of  these  things. 

Up  to  the  present,  the  doctrine  of  immortality  has 
been  an  essential  part  of  Christianity.  The  creeds 
which  have  come  down  to  us  proclaim  the  faith  that 
Christ  Jesus  will  appear  again  to  judge  the  quick  and 
the  dead.  To  the  average  man,  religion  is  absolutely 
committed  to  such  a  belief.  It  has  gone  hand  in  hand 
with  the  idea  of  retribution  and  reward  until  the  two 
have  grown  together.  It  is  not  strange,  then,  that  the 
suspicion  that  immortality  is  not  justified  by  physiologi- 
cal and  psychological  facts  is  felt  to  have  a  grave  bear- 
ing upon  religion.  To  the  vast  ma j  ority,  religion  with- 
out immortality  is  like  Hamlet  with  Hamlet  left  out. 
Remove  the  faith  in  a  special  providence,  likewise,  and 
the  edifice  around  which  many  religious  emotions  and 
values  have  entwined  themselves  is  no  more  than  a 
ruin. 

But  the  idea  of  a  soul  always  accompanies  the  belief 


THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY        143 

in  immortality.  The  experiences  which  led  to  the  one 
notion  naturally  encouraged  the  other.  If  the  soul  can 
leave  the  body,  it  is  obviously  independent,  in  large 
measure,  of  the  latter's  fate.  Let  us  glance  at  some  of 
the  experiences  whose  false  interpretation  is  at  the 
foundation  of  a  belief  in  an  immortal  soul  inhabiting  the 
body  for  a  little  space. 

It  is  surprising  what  an  influence  was  exercised  by 
dreams.  We  have  so  completely  outgrown  this  uncriti- 
cal attitude  toward  them  that  it  takes  some  effort  to 
realize  how  natural  it  was.  For  the  educated  man  of 
to-day,  dreams  are  subjective  experiences,  that  is,  ex- 
periences which  do  not  contain  information  about  what 
is  happening  in  the  external  world.  In  the  jargon  of 
psychology,  they  are  centrally  aroused  ideas  playing 
about  some  organic  stimulus  or  some  repressed  wish. 
But  the  savage  knew  nothing  about  such  distinctions. 
The  dead  appeared  to  the  living  and  talked  with  them. 
Patroclus  stands  before  Achilles  and  chides  him.  Do 
not  the  dead,  then,  have  some  sort  of  life  ?  Many  psy- 
chological motives  combined  to  convince  primitive  man 
of  at  least  a  shadowy  existence  after  death.  But  there 
was  another  side  to  the  dream-life.  The  living  went 
on  long  journeys,  doing  strange  things,  while  their 
bodies  rested  in  the  tent.  Added  to  these  suggestions, 
so  naturally  lending  themselves  to  a  spiritistic  inter- 
pretation, were  still  others.  Certain  kinds  of  sickness 
are  explained  by  means  of  the  idea  of  possession.  In- 
visible agents  are  at  work  in  the  world.  What  can  a 
trance  be  if  not  the  temporary  absence  of  just  such  an 
agent  ?  "  Among  the  Kay ans  of  Borneo,  for  example, 
it  is  the  custom  for  an  elderly  person  learned  in  such 
matters  to  sit  beside  the  corpse,  where  the  soul  is  sup- 


144        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

posed  to  hover  for  some  days  after  death,  and  to  impart 
to  the  latter  minute  directions  for  its  journey  to  the  land 
of  the  dead."  We  are  in  the  presence,  here,  of  natural 
illusions,  of  hypotheses  which  inevitably  arose.  Man's 
first  guesses  were  mistakes.  The  whole  history  of  sci- 
ence drives  this  fact  home. 

The  various  opinions  men  have  built  up  around  the 
idea  of  a  soul  are  instructive.  How  gravely  men  have 
written  about  such  hidden  things!  Only  very  slowly 
have  they  learned  to  separate  an  experience  from  its 
interpretation,  and  to  seek  a  wide  range  of  facts  before 
erecting  even  an  hypothesis.  To  explain  by  means  of 
agents,  visible  and  invisible,  is  the  plausible  method 
to  which  man  always  resorts  first.  It  is  only  when  he 
becomes  more  sophisticated  that  he  thinks  in  terms  of 
processes.  The  following  examples  of  divergent  opin- 
ion upon  the  soul,  gathered  by  an  able  French  author, 
show  the  vagueness  of  the  idea : 

Origen,  the  Alexandrian  theologian :  "  The  soul  is 
material  and  has  a  definite  shape." 

St.  Augustine :  "  The  soul  is  incorporeal  and  im- 
mortal." 

A  Polynesian :  "  The  soul  is  a  breath,  and  when  I 
saw  that  I  was  on  the  point  of  expiring,  I  pinched  my 
nose  in  order  to  retain  my  soul  in  my  body.  But  I  did 
not  grasp  it  tightly  enough — and  I  am  dead." 

Albertus  Magnus :  "  There  are  thirty  arguments 
against  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and  thirty-six  for, 
which  is  a  majority  of  six  arguments  in  favor  of  the 
affirmative." 

Rabbi  Maimonides :  "  It  is  written :  '  The  wicked 
will  be  destroyed  and  there  will  not  rest  anything  of 
him,' " 


THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY        145 

Ecclesiastes :  "  Men  die  as  the  beasts  and  their  fate 
is  the  same.  They  have  all  one  breath." 

The  soul  was  at  first  conceived  in  very  material  ways. 
The  idealistic  movement  in  Greek  philosophy  is  re- 
sponsible for  the  concept  of  an  immaterial  substance. 
"  Under  the  influence  of  mystical,  religious  motives  the 
soul  becomes  more  and  more  non-spatial  and  intangible. 
The  words  used  are  negative  and  abstract.  It  is  gen- 
erally supposed  that  Plotinus  was  the  first  to  describe 
the  soul  as  an  immaterial  substance.  But  this  imma- 
terial substance  must  somehow  be  brought  into  relation 
with  the  physical  body."  It  was  this  situation  which, 
gave  rise  to  the  soul-body  problem  in  philosophy,  a 
problem  which  has  gradually  changed  into  the  mind- 
body  problem.  This  transformation  of  the  puzzle  is 
significant.  The  very  terms  have  changed  and  have 
become  more  concrete  and  empirical.  A  quotation 
from  William  James  —  a  man  who  had  no  bias  against 
theology  —  will  bring  out  the  essential  reasons  for  this 
significant  change  of  terms :  "  Yet  it  is  not  for  idle 
or  fantastical  reasons  that  the  notion  of  the  substan- 
tial soul,  so  freely  used  by  common  men  and  the  more 
popular  philosophies,  has  fallen  upon  such  evil  days, 
and  has  no  prestige  in  the  eyes  of  critical  thinkers. 
It  only  shares  the  fate  of  other  unrepresentable  sub- 
stances and  principles.  They  are  without  exception 
all  so  barren  that  to  sincere  inquirers  they  appear  as 
little  more  than  names  masquerading." 

I  am  inclined  to  believe  that,  to  most  people,  to-day, 
the  soul  means  no  more  than  the  personality,  and  the 
conviction  that  this  cannot  be  reduced  to  the  body.  It 
stands  for  consciousness  and  character  as  somehow 
rooted  in  something  permanent.  Plato's  idea  of  the 


146        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

soul  as  a  simple,  indestructible  substance  awakens 
hardly  an  echo  in  their  minds  —  and  why  should  it  ? 
Something  which  guarantees  and  makes  possible  the 
continued  existence  of  their  conscious  self  after  the 
death  of  the  body  is  the  association  which  is  uppermost. 
Educated  people,  at  least,  have  outgrown  the  ghost- 
soul  of  primitive  times  and  have  put  their  hope  in  the 
inability  of  the  philosophic  scientist  to  explain  life  and 
consciousness  without  appeal  to  agencies  which  are  in- 
explicable on  naturalistic  terms.  But  it  is  obvious 
that  such  a  basis  is  overhung  by  an  ever-threatening 
danger.  If  the  mind-body  problem  were  solved  in  a 
concrete,  empirical  way,  what  then? 

It  has  been  customary  to  examine  the  question  of 
immortality  from  three  angles  which  may  be  called, 
respectively,  the  empirical,  the  ethical  and  the  philo- 
sophical. The  more  recent  drift  of  philosophy  toward 
realism  has  tended  to  bring  the  first  and  the  third 
methods  of  approach  closer  together.  It  has  increas- 
ingly been  felt  that  philosophy  cooperates  with  the 
special  sciences  and  is  inseparable  from  them.  The 
ethical  argument  in  favor  of  immortality  is  oftener 
found  in  poetry  than  in  serious  books  on  ethics.  It 
cannot  be  said  to  have  sufficient  force  to  swing  the  bal- 
ance established  by  science  and  a  realistic  philosophy 
in  touch  with  science. 

The  empirical  status  of  immortality  can  best  be 
brought  out  by  a  glance  at  the  facts  of  abnormal  psy- 
chology. In  olden  days,  as  we  have  seen,  insanity  was 
explained  as  the  disturbing  effect  of  a  demon.  To- 
day, experiment  and  careful  observation  have  proven 
that  it  is  due  to  a  functional  disorder  of  the  brain. 
That,  whenever  there  is  a  disorder  of  the  mind,  there 


THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY        147 

is  some  corresponding  anatomical  or  physiological  flaw 
in  the  brain  has  become  a  commonplace  of  modern 
medicine  and  psychology.  In  fact,  insanity  is  defined 
as  a  "  symptom  of  disease  of  the  brain  inducing  disor- 
dered mental  symptoms."  A  multitude  of  experiences 
point  to  the  very  intimate  connection  between  the  brain 
and  consciousness.  Careful  observation  of  clinical  cases 
has,  for  example,  shown  that  a  lesion  in  the  visual 
center  of  the  brain,  that  is,  the  part  of  the  brain  to 
which  the  fibers  of  the  optic  nerve  run,  induces  the  dis- 
appearance of  both  sight  and  visual  imagery.  Psy- 
chology and  physiology  have  been  busily  engaged  in 
discovering  these  correlations.  So  extended  are  they 
that  the  suggestion  that  consciousness  is  inseparable 
from  the  brain  forces  itself  home  ever  more  obstinately. 
Mental  capacity  runs  parallel  with  the  finer  develop- 
ment of  the  brain.  Is  not,  therefore,  the  very  meaning 
of  mental  capacity  connected  with  the  needs  and  activi- 
ties of  the  organism?  But  the  case  is  still  stronger 
when  we  note  what  happens  to  an  individual  when  some- 
thing goes  wrong  with  the  brain.  Can  this  poor  luna- 
tic, who  has  dropped  from  the  high  level  of  educated 
manhood  to  a  condition  more  helpless  than  that  of  an 
animal,  just  because  of  a  relatively  slight  disintegration 
of  the  cortex,  be  expected  to  recover  his  intellect  by 
means  of  its  total  disintegration?  Can  it  be  denied 
that  the  burden  of  proof  rests  on  those  who  assert  im- 
mortality? 

The  so-called  ethical  argument  for  immortality  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  Immanuel  Kant.  Kant's 
philosophy  was  agnostic,  and  it  was  this  agnosticism 
which  made  his  use  of  the  ethical  argument  possible. 
If  you  can't  make  any  assured  theoretical  statement 


148       THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

about  the  nature  of  the  self,  you  can  allow  demands, 
which  you  regard  as  ethical  and  primary,  to  dictate 
your  ultimate  beliefs.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  Kant's 
argument  savors  of  the  popular  notion  that  the  virtu- 
ous must  be  rewarded.  At  its  highest,  the  ethical  ar- 
gument signifies  a  demand  for  a  future  life  in  order  to 
carry  out  that  development  of  character  which  the  brief 
span  of  earthly  life  is  not  equal  to.  It  is  this  argument 
which  runs  through  Browning.  What  shall  we  say  of 
it? 

There  are  both  factual  and  theoretical  objections 
to  the  ethical  argument  for  immortality.  The  more  we 
know  about  habit,  the  more  we  realize  that  character 
is  pretty  well  "  set  "  by  middle  life.  The  creative  pe- 
riod of  human  life  ends  all  too  soon.  Character  is  not 
an  abstract  possession  separable  from  human  tasks 
and  needs.  It  is  not  like  a  work  of  art  which  can  be 
polished  and  re-polished.  But,  when  all  is  said  and 
done,  ethics  must  abide  by  the  facts  of  the  case.  Take 
character  abstractly  enough  and  apart  from  its  human 
and  organic  setting,  and  the  dream  of  continuous  per- 
fecting may  have  meaning;  but  so  would  the  dream  of 
continuous  intellectual  advance.  Yet  the  scholar  knows 
all  too  well  the  judgment  passed  by  the  coming  genera- 
tion upon  the  older  one:  "They  can't  adjust  them- 
selves to  this  new  point  of  view."  Would  progress  come 
if  the  generations  did  not  pass  ? 

The  philosophical  aspect  of  the  question  can  be 
touched  upon  only  briefly  and  in  an  untechnical  way. 
The  basic  problem  may  be  put  in  this  way:  Can 
human  personality  be  included  in  nature  in  a  theoret- 
ically satisfactory  way?  It  has  been  customary  to 
stress  the  difficulties  which  confront  such  an  attempt 


THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY         149 

and  to  be  silent  in  regard  to  the  problems  which  the 
separation  of  body  and  personality  has  always  found 
facing  it.  Yet  I  think  that  few  philosophers  would 
deny  that  it  is  the  very  irrationality  of  the  traditional 
dualism  which  makes  a  living  monism  of  mind  and  body 
so  desirable  and  so  urgently  sought  after. 

There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  the  persistence 
of  the  mind-body  puzzle  has  been  due  to  two  conditions, 
the  lack  of  an  adequate  theory  of  knowledge,  and  an 
ultra-mechanical,  or  non-evolutionary,  view  of  the 
physical  world.  Scientists  and  philosophers,  alike, 
were  possessed  by  an  inertia  which  prevented  them 
from  taking  the  principle  of  evolution  seriously.  They 
refused  to  readjust  their  ideas  so  as  to  admit  that 
organization  of  a  high  grade,  such  as  characterizes 
the  nervous  system,  has  a  synthetic  way  of  acting  of 
its  own,  not  reducible  to  the  mere  chain-like  action  of 
externally  related  units.  There  are  many  signs  point- 
ing to  the  conclusion  that  a  broader  and  more  flexible 
naturalism  is  forming  which  will  sweep  away  the  arti- 
ficial problems  and  stereotyped  contrasts  which  have 
stood  in  the  way  of  a  candid  inclusion  of  human 
thought  and  activity  within  nature.  When  that  day 
comes,  the  hesitations  which  have  encouraged  the  faith 
in  immortality  in  the  face  of  empirical  difficulties  of  an 
ever-increasing  weight  will  pass  away.  I  am  inclined 
to  prophesy  that  psychology  and  physiology  will  reach 
an  adjustment  of  their  principles  before  many  years 
have  passed,  and  that  consciousness  and  mind  will  take 
their  places  along  with  mass  and  energy  in  the  scien- 
tific view  of  nature.  The  old  dualism  of  soul  and  body 
will  pass  away  and  give  place  to  a  flexible  naturalism. 

The  belief  in  immortality  and  the  wish  for  it  will  die 


150        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

out  very  slowly.  The  vague  appetite  for  another  life 
will  persist  as  an  undercurrent  of  half-understood  de- 
sire for  a  good  whose  nature  has  not  been  clearly 
thought  out.  What  men  really  want  is  an  eternal 
youth  in  an  environment  which  gives  opportunity  for 
self-expression  and  pleasant  companionship.  It  means 
rest  to  the  weary,  new  horizons  to  those  who  wish  to 
achieve,  a  release  from  fetters  to  those  who  have  felt 
themselves  oppressed.  What  a  quiet  charm  there  is  in 
such  an  uncritical  play  of  the  fancy !  But  is  it  any- 
thing more  than  daydreaming?  Can  our  musings  be- 
come definite  without  revealing  themselves  as  fancies? 
Alas !  our  souls  are  old  and  written  upon,  and  we  would 
no  longer  be  the  same  were  these  marks  removed.  They 
have  a  meaning  for  us  and  we  cannot  wish  them  away. 
If,  for  a  forgetful  moment,  we  envy  the  smooth  cheeks 
of  a  youth,  the  envy  is  but  momentary.  What  we 
desire  is  his  abundant  energy  and  hopefulness  with  our 
own  humorous  and  wiser  self  in  command.  How  com- 
pletely we  are  parts  of  life  as  it  is  lived  upon  this 
planet !  Desires,  affections,  passions,  ideas,  habits,  all, 
when  analyzed,  point  to  the  human  organism  and  its 
environment.  Our  personality  is  like  a  plant  which 
draws  its  nourishment  from  what  surrounds  it.  Re- 
move the  old  peasant  from  his  fields  and  plow-fellows, 
and  he  will  lose  interest  in  life.  Remove  the  business 
man  from  the  mart  and  counter,  and  he  will  become 
restless.  How  can  we  expect  to  revive  a  zest  in  life 
by  cutting  the  grown  personality  loose  from  what  it 
has  fed  upon?  It  is  psychologically  absurd  and  be- 
trays that  tendency  to  abstract  thinking  which  is  so 
widespread.  The  human  personality  is  a  function  of 
this  sub-lunar  life,  of  this  organism,  of  this  sky,  of  this 


THE  SOUL  AND  IMMORTALITY        151 

soil,  of  this  restless  struggle  with  nature.     Immortality 
is  an  impossible  surgery. 

At  certain  stages  of  social  development,  false  beliefs 
are  simply  inevitable.  For  example,  the  Ptolemaic 
view  of  the  solar  system  was  bound  to  precede  the  Co- 
pernican.  And  false  beliefs  do  both  good  and  harm 
before  they  are  outgrown.  How  many  of  the  down- 
trodden have  looked  to  another  world  to  right  their 
wrongs  !  It  gave  them  hope :  but  it  made  them  passive 
and  all  too  meek.  Has  not  the  idea  of  another  life 
encouraged  a  false  perspective  in  regard  to  this  one? 
I  cannot  feel  that  the  belief  was  ever  a  very  healthy 
one  for  the  human  race.  Yet,  during  the  coming  pe- 
riod of  transition,  many  who  have  been  trained  to  hold 
false  expectations  will  experience  grievous  pain.  Peo- 
ple who  become  used  to  a  narcotic  recoil  from  the  idea 
of  giving  it  up.  Their  nervous  system  has  been  taught 
to  depend  upon  it.  Is  there  not  something  parallel  to 
this  in  ethics?  Religious  romanticism  is  a  spiritual 
narcotic  which  substitutes  a  dream  world  for  the  more 
humdrum  world  of  every-day  existence.  It  develops 
a  taste  for  the  meretricious  and  sentimental.  In  re- 
venge, the  enthusiast  fails  to  achieve  insight  into  the 
significance  of  common  things.  Life's  real  tragedies 
and  triumphs  are  veiled  from  his  untrained  eye.  Only 
a  whole-hearted,  even  joyous,  immersion  in  the  sea  of 
struggling  human  life  gives  the  imagination  that  iron 
vigor  it  needs.  The  greatest  saints  have  talked  the 
least  of  heaven. 

"  Born  into  life !  —  who  lists 
May  what  is  false  hold  dear, 
And  for  himself  make  mists 
Through  which  to  see  less  clear; 
The  world  is  what  it  is,  for  all  our  dust  and  din. 


152        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

"  Is  it  so  small  a  thing 
To  have  enjoy'd  the  sun, 
To  have  lived  light  in  the  spring, 
To  have  loved,  to  have  thought,  to  have  done; 
To  have  advanced  true  friends,  and  beat  down  baffling 
foes  — " 

Let  those  who  can  meet  life  bravely  and  joyously. 
The  stage  has  been  planned  by  no  master  artist,  and 
the  actors  are  only  amateurs  compelled  to  improvise 
their  parts ;  but  the  sunlight  is  sometimes  golden  and 
the  spoken  lines  often  surprise  us  with  their  beauty. 
What  critic  can  pass  assured  judgment  upon  this  con- 
tinuous play? 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL 

IT  is  noteworthy  that  there  has  never  been  a  problem 
of  good,  but  always  a  problem  of  evil.  Man  takes  the 
good  in  his  life  for  granted,  while  he  bewails  the  pres- 
ence of  evil  in  all  its  forms.  The  Greeks  had  the  myth 
of  Pandora's  box  to  account  for  the  sorrows  and  ills 
which  afflict  the  human  race;  the  Hebrews  told  of  the 
Fall  of  man  from  his  original  state  of  bliss  to  a  life  of 
toil  and  sin  through  the  weakness  of  our  first  parents 
and  the  wiles  of  the  Serpent;  the  Scandinavians  sang 
of  Loki,  the  Spirit  of  Deception,  whose  artful  malice 
led  to  the  death  of  Balder,  the  Beautiful.  And  Chris- 
tianity has  been  accustomed  to  connect  evil  with  a  per- 
sonal devil  "  who  rushes  about  like  a  roaring  lion  seek- 
ing whom  he  may  devour."  At  his  door,  popular 
thought  has  lain  those  temptations  and  backslidings 
that  bewilder  poor  humanity.  Even  the  more  physical 
evils,  such  as  famine,  sickness  and  bodily  injury,  have 
been  ascribed  to  his  agency. 

Is  it  necessary  to  say  that  primitive  man  thought  of 
all  evils  as  due  to  mysterious  potencies  which  sur- 
rounded him  on  every  hand?  His  ritual  of  purification 
corresponds  to  the  signs  which  now  surround  electrical 
machinery.  Irrational  as  many  of  these  taboos  were, 
they  yet  implied  that  the  actual  world  was  a  strange 
mixture  of  favorable  and  unfavorable  potencies  to 

153 


154        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

which  man  had  to  adapt  himself.  "  To  the  primitive 
mind  nothing  was  more  uncanny  than  blood,  and  there 
are  people  still  who  faint  at  the  sight  of  it :  for  *  the 
blood  is  the  life,'  life  and  death  are  the  great  primeval 
mysteries,  and  all  the  physical  substances  that  are  as- 
sociated with  the  inner  principle  of  either  partake  of 
this  mysteriousness."  This  early  idea  of  a  miasmic 
contagion  slowly  unites  itself  with  the  belief  in  demons, 
as  animistic  religion  evolves.  Bad  demons  work  havoc, 
while  favorable  spirits  bring  blessings  to  the  needy 
worshiper. 

But,  as  religion  developed  a  more  distinctly  ethical 
and  personal  character,  the  existence  of  evil  in  the 
world  became  a  problem.  In  the  early  days,  it  was  not 
so  much  a  problem  as  a  fact.  But  a  Jew  who  believed 
that  Yahweh  controlled  everything  that  occurred  in  the 
Kingdom  had  to  account  for  personal  and  social  disas- 
ters in  a  rational  way.  What  was  more  natural  than 
the  hypothesis  that  those  whom  disasters  overtook  had 
been  guilty  of  some  secret  wrong?  And  it  was  this 
point  of  view  which  was  adopted.  The  Book  of  Job 
represents  the  puzzled  reflection  of  a  late  period  over 
the  difficulty  of  squaring  the  hypothesis  with  the  facts. 
And,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  the  puzzle  is  handled  as  well 
as  it  could  be  within  the  accepted  setting.  The  whole 
treatment  is  deductive  rather  than  inductive.  Assume 
an  omnipotent,  omniscient  and  ethically  perfect  deity, 
and  it  follows  that,  when  facts  do  not  square  with  your 
sense  of  justice,  you  must  either  suspect  the  individual 
of  secret  sins  or  proclaim  that  God's  ways  are  past 
finding  out.  In  other  words,  the  search  for  a  theodicy 
leads  to  agnosticism.  Since  you  don't  really  know 
anything  about  the  world,  one  hypothesis  is  as  good  as 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  155 

another.  But  agnosticism  is  a  cheap  way  of  establish- 
ing a  position,  and  is  likely  to  suggest  to  the  reflective 
that  the  whole  setting  of  theodicy  is  at  fault.  If  the 
religious  view  of  the  world  leads  to  this  impasse,  may  it 
not  be  better  to  take  a  more  inductive  way  of  approach 
to  what  we  call  evil?  May  not  reality  be  of  such  a 
character  that  evil  is  as  natural  as  good  ? 

When  we  glance  a  little  more  closely  at  the  Christian 
tradition,  we  find  that  the  popular  answer  to  the  prob- 
lem of  evil  is  by  no  means  unambiguous.  To  explain 
the  existence  of  evil  by  the  agency  of  the  devil  (Satan, 
Ahriman)  is  a  straightforward  answer,  quite  in  accord- 
ance with  the  appeal  to  personal  agency  so  character- 
istic of  religion,  but  it  does  not  harmonize  with  the 
ethical  monotheism  which  Christianity  inherited.  The 
query  will  not  down,  Why  does  this  omnipotent  and 
ethically  perfect  deity  permit  such  a  being  to  exist  to 
work  havoc  amongst  his  children  ?  Even  upon  a  casual 
examination,  it  becomes  evident  that  there  are  many 
strands  of  tradition  and  doctrine  in  Christianity. 
There  is  the  classic  monotheism  of  the  prophets,  and 
the  more  polytheistic  tendencies  of  later  times,  a  con- 
trast parallel  to  the  sanity  of  classic  Greece  as  com- 
pared with  the  flabbiness  of  Hellenistic  times. 

In  the  New  Testament,  itself,  there  are  many  evi- 
dences of  the  acceptance  of  a  dualistic  view  of  the 
world.  Satan  is  the  Prince  of  this  World.  We  have 
already  pointed  out  that  the  writers  of  the  gospels 
think  of  Jesus  as  casting  out  demons  which  have  in- 
fested the  bodies  of  men  and  women  and  made  them  sick. 
Yet,  strange  to  say,  we  are  told  that  not  a  sparrow 
falls  to  the  ground  without  God's  consent. 

This  dualistic  strand  of  thinking  dominated  during 


156        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

the  Middle  Ages.  The  world  is  given  over  to  the  devil 
for  him  to  work  his  will  upon  it.  Here  we  have  both  a 
cause  and  an  effect  of  the  pessimism  of  the  times.  For 
the  early  Christians,  society  was  corrupt  and  filled 
with  abominations;  the  only  sure  way  to  achieve  sal- 
vation was  to  flee  from  its  lure  to  deserts  and  monas- 
teries, there  to  purge  the  soul  of  fleshly  desires.  No 
one  has  painted  the  situation  more  keenly  and  unflinch- 
ingly than  Anatole  France  in  Thais.  Humanity  was 
sick.  A  strong  wave  of  asceticism  spread  from  the 
East  to  the  West  and  carried  with  it  doctrines  based 
on  the  metaphysical  extension  of  the  contrast  between 
light  and  darkness,  good  and  evil.  Matter  is  evil  in 
its  very  nature  and  leagues  itself  with  those  instincts 
in  the  soul  which  come  from  its  contamination  with 
flesh.  The  taint  of  original  sin  is  deepened  by  the 
grossness  of  the  material  out  of  which  man's  earthly 
tabernacle  is  made.  The  body  with  its  passions  plays 
double  traitor  to  the  soul.  Only  by  prayer,  purifica- 
tion, fasting,  and  the  grace  of  God  can  the  son  of  cor- 
ruption save  his  soul  alive  for  the  heavenly  kingdom 
among  the  stars. 

The  number  of  mythical  elements  woven  into  this 
ascetic  dualism  is  striking.  Woman  was  the  temptress 
most  to  be  feared ;  the  daughters  of  Eve  were  considered 
the  most  powerful  instruments  Satan  had  at  his  com- 
mand. It  was  even  debated  whether  she  had  a  soul. 
It  was  even  whispered  that  a  woman  guarded  the  gates 
of  Hell.  Again,  Satan  was  pictured  as  a  demon  lead- 
ing the  unwary  astray  by  the  desires  of  this  world. 
Ethics  was  an  affair  of  external  fighting  for  the  souls 
of  men.  The  whole  setting  was  mythical  and  super- 
naturalistic  and  full  of  picture-thinking. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  157 

We  have  already  referred  to  the  doctrine  of  original 
sin.  This  doctrine  was  taken  up  by  St.  Augustine  who 
had  been  a  Manichean.  Pauline  theology,  Augustini- 
anism,  and  Manicheism  have  much  in  common.  They 
are  all  instances  of  what  may  be  called  mythological 
metaphysics.  The  dogma  is,  that,  left  to  his  own  de- 
vices, man  tends  to  take  the  path  of  sin.  He  is,  more- 
over, alienated  from  God,  who,  because  of  his  perfection, 
cannot  condone  imperfection  and  demands  an  atone- 
ment which  cannot  be  made  by  man  himself.  Hence, 
the  need  arises  for  a  savior  to  mediate  between  man  and 
God.  What  a  construction  is  this  in  which  myth, 
rabbinical  theology  and  pagan  dualistic  cosmologies  are 
drawn  together  to  furnish  the  setting  for  a  juridical 
drama!  How  can  those  who  accept  the  teaching  of 
modern  science  and  realize  the  more  subjective  and  per- 
sonal spirit  of  modern  ethics  conserve  any  portion  of 
this  strange  creation  of  past  ages?  The  idea  of  evo- 
lution, as  applied  to  both  nature  and  man,  undermines 
the  whole  fantastic  drama.  Man  has  arisen  painfully 
from  a  brutish  condition,  instead  of  falling  from  a  per- 
fect state.  The  contrast  between  flesh  and  spirit  can 
no  longer  be  taken  literally  as  corresponding  to  a  sort 
of  physical  division  of  the  universe  into  spheres  of  good 
and  evil  which  can  have  no  commerce  with  one  another. 
This  is  ethical  poetry  which  is  not  sufficiently  aware 
that  it  is  poetry.  Instead  of  seeking  to  re-interpret 
the  belief  in  an  external,  sacrificial  savior,  mediating 
between  God  and  man  in  vague,  mystically  symbolic 
language  which  suggests  a  depth  it  does  not  pos- 
sess, the  sensible  thing  is  to  drop  the  whole  outlook 
frankly,  as  outgrown,  and  as  having  essentially  lost  its 
meaning.  We  saw  that  Jesus,  himself,  would  probably 


158        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

not  have  comprehended  its  intricacies,  and  certainly 
would  not  have  accepted  it  as  true  of  his  own  mission. 
Instead,  it  represents  the  theosophic  speculations  of 
the  Ancient  World.  So  long  as  the  thinker  toys  with 
these  imaginative  speculations  which  have  no  direct 
foundation  in  the  knowledge  and  experience  of  to-day, 
so  long  will  he  live  in  a  mental  fog  unable  to  see  the 
really  pressing  social  and  ethical  problems  of  the 
present. 

When  we  once  shake  ourselves  loose  from  these  myth- 
ical, gnostic  and  rabbinical  ideas,  with  their  legal  and 
poetical  conceptions  of  ethics,  and  their  naive  picture 
of  the  world  as  the  seat  of  ethical  forces  struggling  in 
a  physical  way  against  one  another ;  when  we  once  real- 
ize that  it  is  meaningless  to  apply  ethical  distinctions 
to  matter,  we  are  led  to  press  past  these  Hellenistic 
accretions  to  the  simpler  and  nobler  traditions  which 
Christianity  inherited  from  Jesus  and  the  greater  He- 
brew prophets.  Here,  if  anywhere,  religion  is  in  a 
position  to  solve  the  problem  of  evil.  There  are  pas- 
sages in  the  New  Testament  which  breathe  the  same 
faith  as  that  held  by  Deutero-Isaiah,  a  sort  of  sublime 
religious  optimism  or  will  to  believe.  For  the  Hebrew 
prophet  of  the  exile,  God  is  the  creator  and  righteous 
ruler  of  the  earth.  "  I  am  the  Lord  and  there  is  none 
else.  I  form  the  light  and  create  darkness;  I  make 
peace  and  create  evil;  I  am  the  Lord  that  doeth  all  these 
things."  Such  is  monotheism  of  the  creationalistic 
type  in  all  its  vigor  and  challenging  fervor.  Yet  the 
prophet  speaks  and  thinks  in  terms  of  world-movements 
and  the  fate  of  nations,  and  his  thoughts  scarcely  drop 
from  this  vast  setting  to  consider  the  fates  of  individ- 
uals. We  should  note  further  the  absence  of  the  poly- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  159 

demonism  of  later  Judaism  and  the  evident  impatience 
with  the  ancient  myths  and  the  belief  in  a  Satan  or 
Spirit  of  Evil.  Had  Christianity  taken  its  departure 
from  this  high  altitude,  it  would  have  been  more  truly 
monotheistic,  but  it  would  not  have  been  the  child  of  its 
age,  and  would  not  have  been  assimilated  by  the  Medi- 
terranean peoples.  Let  us  examine  the  implications  of 
this  bolder  and  simpler  faith. 

There  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  position  adopted 
by  the  second  Isaiah  is  the  logical  terminus  of  mono- 
theism. If  God  be  omnipotent,  he  must  be  responsible 
for  all  the  evil  in  the  world  as  well  as  for  the  good.  In 
other  words,  this  must  be  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds. 
He  who  is  a  king,  and  not  a  marionette,  cannot  beg  off 
from  the  duties  of  his  station.  To  introduce  Sin  as  a 
sort  of  hellish  entity,  as  did  Saint  Augustine,  is  to  mar 
our  conception  of  deity.  We  no  longer  have  that  old 
Roman's  courtier-like  sycophancy,  nor  his  nonchalance 
when  others  are  condemned  by  divine  caprice  to  the 
eternal  flames.  What  was  to  him  a  means  of  manifest- 
ing God's  greater  glory  is  to  us  a  crime  which  would 
sully  our  ideal  of  goodness.  The  educated  world  of 
to-day  has  at  least  come  up  to  the  level  of  the  peasant- 
poet's  indictment  of  the  Calvinism  of  two  centuries  ago. 

Christianity  is  on  the  horns  of  a  terrible  dilemma. 
It  has  long  wavered  between  the  bold  attitude  of  Isaiah, 
softened  by  such  devices  as  apologetic  ingenuity  could 
invent,  and  the  mythological  dualism  current  at  the 
time  of  its  birth.  God  must  be  totally  responsible  for 
all  physical  evils,  at  least ;  or  else  he  must  be  thwarted 
by  something  independent  of  himself,  whether  this  be 
an  evil  spirit  or  matter.  Now  scholars  have  pointed 
out  that  the  idea  of  a  prolonged  conflict  between  a 


160        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

good  and  an  evil  power  was  characteristic  of  the  Per- 
sian religion,  and  that  this  view  tinged  later  Judaism 
and  passed  over  into  Christianity.  Here  it  was  met 
and  reenforced  by  Neo-Platonism  in  the  form  usually 
called  Gnosticism  and  Manicheism.  At  present,  the 
tide  has  turned  in  favor  of  monotheism  and  against  the 
coexistence  of  an  evil  power.  We  are  inclined  to  smile 
at  a  personal  devil,  perhaps  because  superstition  has 
made  him  humorous,  perhaps  because  we  know  better 
the  seat  and  cause  of  what  we  call  evil.  Science  has 
helped  to  do  away  with  the  devil;  but,  in  so  doing,  has 
it  not  also  undermined  the  idea  of  Providence?  Must 
not  the  same  arrow  transfix  an  effective  God  that  does 
away  with  an  effective  Devil? 

The  God  of  the  past  was  a  realistic  God ;  he  counted 
for  everything  in  the  governance  of  the  universe.  The 
God  of  modern  theology  is  fast  becoming  an  ideal  of 
personality.  When  God  is  thought  of  as  a  tender- 
hearted and  perfect  gentleman,  the  question  of  evil 
takes  the  following  form:  Can  we  harmonize  this  con- 
ception with  the  facts  of  life?  Is  God  an  agent  or  an 
ideal?  We  must  bear  in  mind  the  fact  that  God  is  an 
hypothesis  characteristic  of  the  religious  view  of  the 
world,  and  that,  like  every  other  hypothesis,  it  should 
help  to  explain  the  facts  to  which  it  is  relevant.  But 
does  it  do  this?  Is  it  fruitful? 

I  am  free  to  confess  that  theodicies  of  all  sorts  strike 
me  as  proofs  of  the  inapplicability  of  the  religious  view 
of  the  world.  Yet  immense  dialectical  ability  has  been 
displayed  in  the  tireless  search  for  some  satisfactory 
theory  of  God's  relation  to  the  universe.  A  glance  at 
these  theories  reveals  the  working  of  the  time-spirit. 
When  man  is  harsh,  his  god  is  harsh  and  cruel.  When 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  161 

man  is  tender,  his  god  is  benevolent.  And  this  cor- 
respondence does  not  complete  the  story.  In  past  ages, 
the  political  organization  was  autocratic  and  unyield- 
ing. The  subjects  of  the  monarch  did  not  dream  of 
questioning  the  justice  of  his  rule.  It  was  not  right 
for  common  men  to  think  of  such  matters ;  it  was  out  of 
their  sphere  of  control  and  understanding.  Besides, 
is  not  might  the  sanction  of  right?  During  these  mo- 
narchial  periods,  God  was  thought  of  as  a  heavenly 
king  whose  power  and  glory  and  dominion  was  without 
end.  This  correspondence  between  the  political  organ- 
ization and  the  theological  picture  betrays  the  socio- 
logical side  of  theology.  All  of  man's  ideas  are  human 
ideas,  and  so  his  idea  of  his  God  and  the  very  person- 
ality and  moral  outlook  of  that  God  reflect  the  social 
standards  which  are  in  force  around  the  individual. 
If  human  justice  is  cruel,  God's  justice  is  strict  and 
unyielding.  What  could  be  more  natural  than  this 
parallelism?  But  as  punitive  justice  yields  to  ideas  of 
mercy  and  sympathy,  a  change  comes  over  man's  con- 
ception of  this  heavenly  replica  of  his  own  sentiments 
and  institutions.  Irrational  punishment  with  its  bru- 
tal terrors  gives  way  to  thoughts  of  lovingkindness. 

But  it  is  this  very  evolution  of  human  morality  which 
brings  out  the  problem  of  evil  in  all  its  distinctness. 
Yahweh  could  command  whole  tribes  to  be  slaughtered, 
and  no  one  felt  the  least  religious  discomfort.  But 
the  man  of  to-day,  when  he  allows  himself  to  think, 
revolts  against  such  heartlessness.  God  must  be  at 
least  as  merciful  as  man  —  and  man  would  not  do  these 
things.  Yet  our  experience  tells  us  that  pain  and  dis- 
aster are  everywhere  rampant  in  the  world.  How  is 
it  that  an  omnipotent  and  noble  God  permits  these 


162        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

things  to  be?  The  line  of  reasoning  which  leads  to  the 
demand  for  a  theodicy  is  simple  and  direct.  God  is  a 
moral  agent  who  has  this  peculiarity,  that  he  can  do 
what  he  wills  and  is  therefore  responsible  for  all  that 
happens.  But  tragic  things  happen.  Why  did  he  per- 
mit them? 

The  various  formulations  of  God's  relation  to  the 
world  turn  about  this  problem.  The  inherent  possibili- 
ties are  few  in  number  and  are  soon  grasped  and  devel- 
oped. If  God  is  a  limited  deity,  then  evil  can  be  as- 
signed to  something  else.  If  God  is  unlimited,  then 
whatever  is,  is  somehow  right.  Let  us  glance  at  typical 
developments  of  these  two  main  lines  of  approach. 

Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  has  recently  startled  the  general 
public  by  his  advocacy  of  a  struggling  deity.  It  is  not 
in  accordance  with  Christian  tradition,  he  admits,  but 
it  is  truer  to  the  facts  as  we  know  them.  But  he  might 
well  have  told  the  public  that  this  view  of  his  was  not 
a  new  one.  Long  before  the  Christian  era,  the  Zoroas- 
trian  Persians  held  just  such  a  theory  of  a  struggling 
deity  combating  the  evil  machinations  of  Ahriman. 
The  faithful  were  exhorted  to  do  all  in  their  power  to 
assist  Ahura  Mazda  in  his  stern  fight  with  darkness 
and  contamination.  This  dualistic  view  found  its  way 
West  and  appears  in  Manicheism.  It  may  not  be  well 
known,  but  it  was  this  Manichean  conception  of  the 
world  that  Saint  Augustine  gave  up  at  his  conversion 
to  Christianity.  Again  and  again,  it  found  its  way  to 
the  surface  of  Western  society.  Who  has  not  heard 
of  the  Cathars  or  Albigenses  of  the  Middle  Ages? 
These  people  were  believers  in  a  struggling  deity  en- 
gaged with  the  powers  of  evil.  Some  of  them  identi- 
fied the  Jehovah  of  the  Old  Testament  with  this  cruel 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  163 

and  malignant  spirit.  In  so  doing,  they  showed  an 
absence  of  all  historical  perspective,  but,  also,  a  keen 
ethical  judgment.  This  tribal  god  of  the  early  Jews 
did  not  harmonize  with  their  ideals  of  goodness  and 
mercy.  While  theirs  was  a  darker  and  more  supersti- 
tious outlook  than  an  educated  man  of  to-day  would 
adopt,  the  logical  basis  of  the  system  is  essentially  the 
same  as  the  one  which  seems  to  be  rising  to  the  surface 
in  our  own  times  as  a  revolt  against  the  smugness  of 
traditional  Christianity.  The  atmosphere  of  religion 
was  more  somber  in  the  past;  and  these  Cathars  would 
have  been  shocked  by  the  fine,  careless  rapture  of  the 
modern  novelist;  but  they  would  have  recognized  that 
his  view  was  akin  to  their  own. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  to  mention  the  fact  that  John 
Stuart  Mill,  the  famous  English  philosopher  of  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  suggested  that  it 
would  be  truer  to  the  experience  of  human  beings  to 
assume  a  God  limited  in  power,  though  perfect  in  other 
respects.  It  is  impossible,  he  thought,  to  harmonize 
the  attributes  of  omnipotence  and  goodness  in  a  divine 
agent,  with  the  world  as  it  is.  This  protest  against  the 
high,  deductive  faith  of  Christian  monotheism  was  due 
to  Mill's  frank  empiricism.  Life  must  speak  for  itself, 
he  held;  it  must  justify  hypotheses  by  their  agreement 
with  it.  The  traditional  Christian  method  has  been 
too  dictatorial  and  too  little  inductive.  It  has  started 
from  a  set  of  dogmas  in  regard  to  God  and  spun  out 
their  consequences,  refusing  to  qualify  these  dogmas 
when  the  consequences  did  not  fit  the  tragic  character 
of  life. 

The  treatment  of  the  second  logical  possibility  is  fa- 
miliar ground.  Christian  ethical  monotheism  followed 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

Hebrew  religious  thought  in  its  essentials.  God  is  held 
to  be  an  omnipotent  agent  who  is  also  morally  perfect. 
Theology  knows  two  forms  of  this  dogma,  the  Calvin- 
istic  or  Augustinian,  and  the  Arminian.  Calvinism 
stands  flatly  on  the  thesis  that  God  is  just  and  that, 
therefore,  what  is  done  is  just.  Within  this  setting 
with  its  easy  appeal  to  ignorance,  it  makes  little  differ- 
ence whether  events  are  right  because  God  does  them  or 
whether  God  does  them  because  they  are  right.  Ar- 
minianism  turns  out,  when  examined,  to  be  largely  an 
attempt  to  soften  the  absolutism  of  Calvinism  along  cer- 
tain lines.  But  these  endless  and,  in  the  main,  sterile 
theological  controversies  reveal  the  artificiality  of  the 
dogmas  within  which  they  are  carried  on.  They  are, 
when  all  is  said,  only  ingenious  modifications  and  re- 
dressings  of  the  primary  assumptions  of  the  religious 
view  of  the  world.  I  challenge  any  one  to  develop  a 
really  tenable  system  of  theology,  a  system  which  is 
self-consistent  and  relevant  to  the  world  as  we  know 
it.  I  am  certain  that  it  cannot  be  done.  As  a  student 
of  ethics,  my  growing  conviction  has  for  some  time  been 
that  these  traditional  controversies  and  modes  of  ap- 
proach to  human  life  are  barren  and  irrelevant,  because 
they  cast  absolutely  no  light  upon  human  problems,  so- 
cial or  personal.  Modern  ethics  and  theology  have 
ceased  to  have  any  genuine  commerce.  The  one  is  in 
touch  with  the  sciences  of  biology,  sociology,  psychol- 
ogy and  criminology ;  the  other,  by  its  very  nature,  can 
gain  nothing  from  these  sciences.  Ethics  is  concrete 
and  inductive.  Theology  is  abstract  and  deductive. 

I  have  not  tried  to  state  and  criticize  the  numer- 
ous theodicies  which  man's  restless  intellect  has  con- 
structed. Mystics  have  taught  that  evil  is  an  illu- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  165 

sion.  But  illusions  have  a  way  of  being  very  real; 
and  a  derogatory  term  does  not  alter  facts.  Idealists 
have  declared  that  what  we  call  evil  only  increases  the 
divine  harmony,  as  a  judicious  discord  heightens  the 
effect  of  symphonic  combinations.  But  this  aesthetic 
argument  conflicts  with  moral  relations.  Surely  God 
would  not  be  so  self-centered.  Thus  there  are  weighty 
objections  to  all  the  ingenious  and  profound  apologies 
for  the  course  of  events.  But  why  are  such  apologies 
felt  to  be  necessary?  Simply  and  solely  because  events 
are  assumed  to  be  under  the  control  of  an  intelligent, 
moral  agent.  Withdraw  this  assumption,  and  the 
problem  vanishes. 

When  we  turn  from  the  religious  view  of  the  world 
to  the  scientific  and  philosophical,  we  are  immediately 
impressed  by  the  different  perspective.  What  were 
theoretical  problems  of  the  most  absolute  and  inescap- 
able kind  cease  to  exist.  While  the  religious  view  of  the 
world  culminates  in  an  attempted  justification  of  the 
ways  of  God  to  man,  the  scientific  studies  the  system  of 
things  as  a  given  whole  to  which  all  questions  of  justi- 
fication are  irrelevant.  The  world  is  as  it  is,  and  the 
category  of  responsibility  is  inapplicable.  Evil  becomes 
a  practical  and  relative  problem.  There  is  no  thought 
of  trying  to  fix  responsibility  upon  some  personal  agent 
who  could  have  done  otherwise  and  did  not.  Man  is  a 
part  of  nature,  although  a  self-directive  organism 
adapted  more  or  less  adequately  to  his  environment. 
And  just  because  he  is  an  organism,  he  must  maintain 
himself  in  the  face  of  attacks  and  fluctuating  changes. 
He  is  not  able  to  claim  exemption  from  the  consequences 
of  cataclysms,  such  as  earthquakes  and  tornadoes, 
which  result  from  the  unstable  balance  of  physical  en- 


166        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

ergies.  He  perishes  in  the  same  way  that  beasts  and 
plants  do,  when  his  intelligence  is  not  able  to  find  a  way 
of  escape  from  a  sudden  danger.  In  other  words,  phys- 
ical evil  is  evil  only  because  it  hurts  man,  who  does 
not  want  to  be  hurt.  From  the  objective  standpoint, 
evil  and  good  differ  not  a  jot  from  one  another.  They 
are  both  causal  events  baptised  by  man  in  accordance 
with  his  sympathies  and  antipathies.  Events  are  good 
to  him  or  bad  to  him;  in  themselves,  they  are  neither 
good  nor  bad.  Rain  does  not  fall  in  summer  in  order 
to  nourish  the  plants ;  instead,  the  plants  are  nourished 
and  continue  to  exist  because  the  rain  falls.  Once,  it 
was  hard  for  man  to  admit  this  impersonalism.  He 
wanted  to  find  an  objective  purpose  focusing  upon  his 
career.  But  he  is  at  last  beginning  to  realize  that  his 
will  to  live  and  create  is  the  source  of  all  values.  Na- 
ture is  a  thing  to  be  used  for  his  own  desired  ends. 

There  are  no  problems  harder  than  false  problems. 
The  great  achievement  is  to  see  that  they  are  false 
because  they  flow  from  a  false  assumption.  Remove 
this  assumption,  and  the  problem  which  tortured  the 
greatest  thinkers  vanishes  into  thin  air.  The  problem 
of  evil  becomes  the  problem  of  lessening  evil  by  con- 
quering nature  and  rendering  her  subservient  to  man. 
It  is  a  problem  of  engineering,  of  applied  chemistry,  of 
preventive  medicine,  of  social  planning.  Man  must 
become  the  master  of  his  destiny  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  his  intelligence.  But  what  a  different  set- 
ting this  presents  from  the  one  in  which  primitive  man 
existed!  Then  man  was  needy  and  fearful  and  igno- 
rant and  helpless.  Now  he  is  wealthy,  ingenious,  sure 
of  himself.  It  is  coming  to  be  that  man  is  less  hurt  by 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  EVIL  167 

physical  agencies  than  by  himself.  He  has  freed  him- 
self from  his  environment;  he  must  now  free  himself 
from  his  own  passions  and  hatreds.  He  must  love 
righteousness  and  peace,  and  flee  from  dissension  and 
all  forms  of  injustice.  The  problem  of  evil  has  become 
a  social  problem.  It  is  the  task  of  amelioration  by 
intelligent  control. 

But  science,  alone,  will  never  be  sufficient  to  meet  the 
fact  of  evil.  The  most  optimistic  believer  in  the  possi- 
bilities of  intelligent  planning  and  control  does  not  deny 
that  tragedies  of  all  sorts  will  still  be  only  too  com- 
mon. Let  us  hope  that  there  will  be  less  of  tuberculo- 
sis, less  of  grinding  poverty,  less  of  avoidable  accidents. 
But  will  there  be  less  of  secret  disappointment  with  life, 
less  of  wounded  affection?  More  will  live  happy  and 
noble  lives  in  the  healthier  society  which  is  within  our 
power  than  was  possible  in  the  past;  but  there  will  be 
mal-adjustments  of  various  kinds.  Individuals  will 
seek  to  control  the  lives  of  others,  and  this  control  will 
be  resented ;  friends  will  fall  out  over  fancied  or  real 
wrongs ;  lovers  will  quarrel ;  misunderstandings  will 
arise.  None  of  Shakespeare's  great  tragedies  tum 
about  sickness  and  natural  calamities.  The  motives 
are  social  and  personal  in  character,  the  quarrels  of 
rival  houses,  the  senile  pride  of  an  old  man,  the  ambition 
of  princes,  the  adulterous  love  which  leads  to  murder. 
Men  will  need  strength  of  spirit  and  broad  sympathy 
to  meet  the  situations  which  confront  them.  And  many 
will  fail  hopelessly  in  the  struggle,  in  the  future  as  they 
have  in  the  past.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  rank  and 
file  will  lead  vigorous,  active  lives  with  a  fair  measure 
of  those  rewards  of  success  and  companionship  which 


168        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

sweeten  endeavor.  What  more  is  there  to  say?  Life 
is  a  hazard,  and  men  must  take  their  risk  bravely. 
Courage  on  the  part  of  the  actor  will  do  much;  sym- 
pathy on  the  part  of  those  near  him  will  also  do  much ; 
but  risk  there  will  be  always. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
RELIGION  AND  ETHICS 

WHAT  was  the  exact  relation  between  religion  and 
morality  in  the  past?  Does  morality  any  longer  need 
the  sanctions  and  supernatural  setting  which  helped 
to  support  it  in  other  days?  These  are  questions  of 
primary  importance  whose  discussion  should  throw  light 
upon  both  religion  and  human  morality.  Have  human 
values  become  self-supporting  and  self- justify  ing?  Do 
the  decencies  of  life  find  sufficient  ground  in  human  na- 
ture for  their  continuance  and  increase?  Or  is  the 
rescuing  hand  of  a  supernatural  grace  necessary  to 
prevent  deterioration?  Such  questions  are  peculiarly 
proper  to-day  when  ethics  is  seeking  to  build  itself  upon 
a  broad  study  of  human  instincts.  Let  us  try  to  pene- 
trate below  the  surface  of  the  traditional  contrasts  be- 
tween flesh  and  spirit  —  contrasts  which  hindered  rather 
than  furthered  clear  analysis  —  and  note  the  actual 
basis  of  the  spiritual  life  in  man.  In  order  to  do  so, 
we  must  read  human  nature  as  it  manifests  itself  in 
organized  society,  sanely  and  calmly,  expecting  neither 
too  much  nor  too  little,  and  not  being  intimidated  by 
the  assertions  of  men  who  have  built  their  lives  around 
the  traditional  theological  outlook.  Those  who  have 
learned  to  lean  upon  a  crutch  or  who  have  cast  their 
spiritual  experiences  in  a  certain  mold  naturally  feel 

at  a  loss  when  this  is  threatened.     This  is  to  put  it  too 

169 


170        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

mildly,  perhaps,  for  the  odium  tlieologicum  has  a  repu- 
tation which  cannot  be  all  unearned.  Yet,  compre- 
hensible as  the  protest  of  the  conservative  is,  it  must 
be  viewed  in  the  light  of  the  psychological  habits  which 
it  expresses.  It  may  well  be  that  new  times  and  new 
points  of  view  will  bring  new  habits  and  new  molds  for 
spiritual  experience.  It  may  well  be  that  the  tradi- 
tional religious  sanctions  will  gradually  lose  their  mean- 
ing in  the  new  generation,  born  into  a  more  social, 
humane  and  scientific  atmosphere.  Let  us  see  what  in- 
dications there  are  for  this  prediction. 

In  early  times,  religion  was  mainly  a  community 
affair.  The  tribe  or  state  had  its  gods  who  protected 
it  against  its  enemies  in  return  for  homage  and  sac- 
rifice. The  tribal  god  was  inseparable  from  his  wor- 
shipers. A  god  without  a  nation  was  almost  as  badly 
off  as  a  nation  without  a  divine  protector.  As  mem- 
bers of  the  community,  the  individuals,  separately  and 
collectively,  were  required  to  perform  established  cere- 
monies which  were  pleasing  in  the  eyes  of  the  gods, 
and  to  refrain  from  acting  in  ways  displeasing  to  them. 
Gods  and  men  formed,  as  it  were,  one  society;  and  so 
customs  and  rituals  always  received  the  fearful  sanc- 
tions of  these  divine  powers.  How  naturally  this  out- 
look developed  can  readily  be  understood.  And  there 
can  be  little  doubt  that  the  double  sanction  of  social 
group  and  divine  witnesses  was  of  advantage  in  those 
early  days  when  man  was  more  impulsive  and  less  ra- 
tional than  he  is  to-day.  A  crime  was,  at  one  and  the 
same  time,  a  crime  and  a  sin  or  act  of  impiety;  and 
so  close  was  thought  to  be  the  responsible  connection 
of  the  individual  and  the  group  that  the  tribe  was 
held  to  be  in  danger  because  of  the  deeds  of  its  members. 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  171 

The  gods  were  living  agents  quick  to  anger  and  ready 
to  punish  in  the  direst  ways.  Warned  by  this  knowl- 
edge of  the  jealousy  of  the  gods,  the  fellow  tribesmen 
hastened  to  punish  the  offender  in  order  to  ward  off 
the  divine  anger.  Thus  the  sanctions  enforcing  the 
customs  were  both  social  and  religious. 

This  situation  had  its  bad  side  as  well  as  its  good. 
While  it  helped  to  enforce  the  tribal  laws  by  means 
of  the  awe  of  the  divine  witness  who  could  not  be  es- 
caped, it  tended  to  merge  valuable  with  trivial  things. 
Society  was  quite  irrational  as  yet,  and  was  as  likely  to 
punish  the  violation  of  accidental  taboos  as  really  seri- 
ous attacks  upon  society.  It  is  a  commonplace  of  his- 
tory that  religions  have  stressed  ritual  observances 
more  than  vital  phases  of  conduct.  The  greater  He- 
brew prophets  stand  out  just  because  of  their  emphasis 
upon  human  morality,  upon  justice  and  righteousness 
and  love.  Amos  and  Hosea  are  social  reformers  who 
conceive  their  national  god  as  a  god  of  righteousness 
who  will  turn  his  face  away  from  the  doers  of  evil. 
They  threaten  their  compatriots  with  his  wrath  if  they 
continue  in  their  evil  ways.  "  Seek  good,  and  not  evil, 
that  ye  may  live:  and  so  the  Lord,  the  God  of  hosts, 
shall  be  with  you,  as  ye  say.  Hate  the  evil  and  love 
the  good,  and  establish  judgment  in  the  gate."  Thus 
the  setting  of  religion  was  used  as  the  leverage  for  an 
attempted  ethical  reformation,  the  exalted  reformer  con- 
ceiving himself  as  the  mouthpiece  of  his  god.  But  the 
prophets  were  exceptions.  The  priestly  class,  the  class 
that  has  always  held  closely  to  traditional  ways  of  think- 
ing, brought  the  usual  multitude  of  non-moral  acts  un- 
der this  impressive  sanction. 

The  struggle  between  priest  and  prophet,  traditional- 


172        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

ist  and  ethical  reformer,  took  place  within  the  religious 
view  of  the  world,  but  the  conflict  was,  after  all,  a 
purely  human  process.  The  prophets  loved  righteous- 
ness because  they  knew  that  it  was  good,  because  they 
fell  repelled  by  unmerited  poverty  and  by  careless 
wealth,  because  they  admired  the  decencies  of  life. 
They  could  not  have  given  the  justification  of  their 
sentiments  as  well  as  a  theorist  of  to-day,  but  they 
had  these  sentiments  as  keenly  as  to-day's  prophet  has 
them.  When  we  read  their  wonderful  discourses,  we 
are  thrilled  by  the  depth  and  intensity  of  their  ethical 
life.  But  we  are  too  apt  to  forget  that  the  social  situa- 
tion in  Palestine  was  the  stimulus  to  their  denuncia- 
tions. They  were  noble  enough  to  feel  that  conditions 
were  intolerable,  and  it  was  not  a  far  step  to  believe 
that  Yahweh  would  not  tolerate  them.  A  noble  man 
has  always  a  noble  god.  That  is  the  reason  why  the 
god  of  Amos  is  noble.  The  theological  view  reverses  the 
true  causal  relation.  Morality  is  always  human  moral- 
ity, expressive  of  human  nature  and  human  conditions. 
Man  may  assign  his  ideals  to  some  superhuman  source 
because  he  is  convinced  that  this  source  has  selected 
him  as  its  interpreter ;  but  the  fact  that  he  has  thought 
and  judged  in  this  moral  way  is  indubitable,  while  his 
theory  that  Yahweh  is  speaking  through  him  is  merely 
an  expression  of  the  religious  view  of  the  world  com- 
mon to  the  time.  When  we  stop  a  moment  to  think,  we 
realize  that  Amos  and  Hosea  were  certain  to  put 
their  views  under  the  sanction  of  their  national  god. 
Not  to  have  done  so  would  have  been  far  stranger 
psychologically  than  the  ideals  which  they  cham- 
pioned. 

Did  the  prophetic  claim  that  social  justice  was  sane- 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  173 

tioned  by  Yahweh  help  its  advance?  Probably.  I  see 
no  reason  to  doubt  that  it  did  somewhat  —  how  much 
it  is  impossible  to  say.  So  far  as  the  claim  was  ac- 
cepted by  the  nation,  it  would  assist  the  forces  working 
for  reform.  But  religious  sanctions  are  far  more 
powerful  when  they  are  explicit  and  detailed,  as  the  his- 
tory of  Christianity  has  shown.  And  we  must  remem- 
ber that  the  prophetic  claims  were  not  always  accepted. 
Religion  is  usually  conservative  and  more  or  less  con- 
ventional. The  ritual  element  plays  a  considerable 
part  in  religious  morality.  It  is  as  hard  to  change 
the  people's  ideas  of  God  as  it  is  to  change  their  con- 
ceptions of  justice  and  goodness.  For  this  reason,  I 
am  not  convinced  that  the  religious  sanction  was  of 
much  advantage  in  the  evolution  of  morality.  The 
old  has  even  more  of  the  use  of  the  sanction  than  has 
the  new.  Moral  forces  need  to  be  vigorously  based 
upon  human  nature  and  human  relations  if  they  are 
to  dominate  society  and  control  the  ethical  standards 
which  public  opinion  demands.  The  presence  of  re- 
ligious sanctions  simply  beclouds  the  real  factors  at 
work.  Morality  can  never,  in  the  long  run,  be  some- 
thing pressed  upon  man  from  outside;  it  must  express 
his  life  and  its  needs. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  supernatural  sanctions  have 
often  been  very  effective  for  certain  types  of  people  in 
certain  anarchic  periods.  The  robber  baron  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  credulous  and  superstitious,  was  re- 
strained at  times  by  his  fear  of  the  penalties  threatened 
by  Mother  Church.  But  so  is  a  burglar  by  a  pistol 
pointed  at  him,  even  if  it  is  not  loaded.  In  the  past,  a 
code  of  morality  much  in  advance  of  the  times  has,  no 
doubt,  often  been  aided  by  religious  sanctions.  But 


174        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

it  is  foolish  to  base  one's  theories  upon  exceptional  con- 
ditions. We  must  remember  that  the  situation  con- 
fronted by  the  Christian  tradition  after  the  break- 
down of  the  political  and  social  life  of  the  Roman  Em- 
pire was  abnormal.  A  turbulent  mass  of  barbarians 
faced  the  ethics  and  theology  of  an  overthrown  civil- 
ization. It  cannot  too  often  be  pointed  out  that  this 
situation  was  unhealthy  in  many  ways.  It  is  not  good 
for  a  people  to  have  codes  of  morality  thrust  upon  it 
from  outside.  Especially  is  it  bad  when  the  code  is  in 
many  ways  untrue  to  human  nature  under  normal  con- 
ditions. Ascetic,  other-worldly  Christianity  distorted 
the  impulses  of  mediaeval  man.  And  it  is  certain  that 
religious  sanctions,  alone,  enabled  it  to  control  so- 
ciety. 

We  have  seen  that  religion  and  morality  marched  to- 
gether as  long  as  the  evolution  of  the  society  was 
healthy  and  natural.  Often  there  was  a  struggle  over 
the  ritual  and  mythical  elements  in  religious  morality ; 
but,  as  a  rule,  the  civic  type  of  morality  gained  the 
upper  hand.  Religious  sanctions  were  called  in  be- 
cause of  the  faith  in  divine  powers  interested  in  the  wel- 
fare of  the  community,  but  these  sanctions  soon  ceased 
to  be  creative.  While  the  gods  remained,  these  sanc- 
tions would  necessarily  remain ;  yet  they  tended  to  be- 
come benevolent  and  secondary. 

But  Christianity,  by  reason  of  the  forces  at  work 
at  the  time  of  its  origin,  nourished  vicious  interpreta- 
tions of  morality.  The  despair  of  human  nature  which 
we  note  in  the  writings  of  St.  Paul  tinged  the  outlook 
of  Christian  ethics.  Man  is  by  nature  evil;  only  the 
working  in  his  soul  of  a  supernatural  grace  can  lead 
him  to  value  the  things  which  are  pure  and  of  good 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  175 

repute.  This  pessimism  cannot  be  too  sharply  spurned. 
Man  is  neither  angel  nor  devil;  he  is  just  man. 
And  the  modern  thinker  is  pretty  well  convinced  that 
morality  is  a  purely  human  affair  growing  out  of  the 
instinctive  tendencies  which  man  has  inherited  in  the 
course  of  evolution  as  these  find  themselves  in  various 
situations.  Moral  problems  are  meaningless  apart 
from  their  setting  on  this  earth.  Man  is  moral  because 
he  can  pass  judgments  upon  courses  of  behavior  and 
decide  what  best  conduces  to  his  welfare.  He  is  moral 
because  he  can  build  up  standards  of  social  and  per- 
sonal conduct  and  adhere  to  them  more  or  less  com- 
pletely. The  assumption  that  man  is  immoral  is  psy- 
chologically untrue.  The  asceticism  and  pessimism  of 
mediaeval  Christianity  was  a  reflection  of  false  ideals 
and  of  an  unhealthy  social  system.  There  was  an 
element  of  strain  in  the  demands  held  up  before  the 
individual.  The  spiritual  life  was  a  task  which  he  had 
to  accomplish  because  it  possessed  a  supernatural  sanc- 
tion. 

But  the  inherent  pessimism  of  much  of  Christianity 
was  not  its  only  fault.  It  taught  men  to  suppose  that 
morality  was  not  something  which  paid  for  itself.  So 
much  did  it  stress  the  necessity  of  supernatural  sanc- 
tions that  it  led  the  majority  to  believe  that  no  man 
would  be  good  unless  he  had  to,  unless  he  was  afraid 
of  the  external  consequences  which  would  be  meted  out 
to  him  at  the  bar  of  judgment.  But  how  false  such  a 
view  is.  We  know  to-day  that  morality  pays  here 
and  now,  in  the  specie  of  a  happy,  healthy,  well-devel- 
oped life.  Any  other  view  makes  morality  irrational 
and  unnatural  and,  consequently,  dependent  upon  sanc- 
tions which  rest  upon  the  will  of  some  agent  apart  from 


176        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

this  concrete  life  of  act  and  fact.  To  put  this  criticism 
in  the  technical  language  of  ethics,  Christianity  has 
tended  to  think  of  conduct  in  terms  of  heteronomous 
ethics,  i.e.,  in  terms  of  precepts  and  laws  coming  from 
outside  of  human  life  and  pressed  upon  it  by  authority, 
rather  than  in  terms  of  autonomous  ethics  for  which 
ideals  and  customs  are  wise  adjustments  to  the  natural 
relations  in  which  man  finds  himself. 

This  assumption  that  morality  is  a  hardship  played 
into  the  hands  of  a  juridical  notion  of  the  sanctions 
of  conduct,  for  which  the  conception  of  immortality 
furnished  the  grandiose  opportunity.  The  arm  of 
society  is  eluded  at  death,  but  death  offers  no  escape 
for  the  wicked  from  the  outraged  deity  they  have 
offended.  It  is  the  motive  of  fear  which  is  here  em- 
ployed. Human  beings  are  to  be  scared  into  being 
good.  Morality  is  on  the  defensive  because  it  has  no 
real  charm  and  natural  loveliness,  because  it  does  not 
grow  out  of  a  rational  study  of  human  relations. 

How  tragically  false  this  view  was  !  Its  existence  can 
be  explained  only  as  an  expression  of  an  ill-organized 
society  in  which  impulsive  violence  was  not  enough  held 
in  check.  Supernatural  sanctions  could  be  used  to  re- 
strain malefactors  of  great  power  in  less  happy  times. 
Society  has  grown  beyond  this  need.  Courts  of  law 
and  outraged  public  opinion  are  quite  able  to  deal  with 
criminals.  If  the  reason  for  punishment  is  prevention, 
it  is  certainly  true  that  punishment  by  society  is  more 
likely  to  be  effective  than  the  postponed  pains  of  an 
hereafter,  because  of  its  immediacy  and  power  of  being 
repeated.  But  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  fear  is  a 
moral  motive  or  whether  it  is  a  very  effective  deterrent. 
Social  thinkers  are  agreed  that  punishment  is  a  very 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  177 

bungling  method  at  the  best.  It  does  not  show  the 
presence  of  a  very  constructive  imagination. 

Hell  has  always  been  a  magnified  torture  chamber. 
It  has  been  the  reflection  on  the  gigantic  background 
of  the  next  world  of  the  penal  ideas  of  the  time.  That 
is  why  it  has  always  been  more  interesting  than  heaven. 
Man  feared  to  make  a  social  utopia  out  of  heaven  be- 
cause he  conceived  it  as  a  kingdom  in  which  he  was  to 
play  a  very  minor  role,  while  he  was  quite  certain  of  his 
importance  in  hell.  But  the  morbid  results  of  his  im- 
aginings were  tragic  in  their  effects  when  connected 
with  such  damnable  doctrines  as  infant  damnation  and 
eternal  punishment  for  lack  of  belief  in  a  particular 
creed.  What  distorted  ethical  notions,  what  mixture 
of  horrible  fear  before  a  world-tyrant  and  callous  de- 
light in  the  punishment  of  others  are  revealed  in  these 
pictures  of  a  place  of  eternal  torment!  Thank  good- 
ness, the  civilized  world  is  outgrowing  the  whole  savage 
set  of  ideas. 

Before  we  leave  these  juridical  religious  sanctions,  it 
may  be  well  to  call  attention  to  the  fact  that  theories  of 
punishment  have  radically  changed  during  the  last 
century.  The  purpose  of  modern  justice  is  less  to 
uphold  the  majesty  of  an  outraged  law  than  to  protect 
the  citizens  of  a  state  and  reform  the  character  of  the 
criminal.  Crime  is  studied  genetically  and  its  condi- 
tions determined  so  far  as  possible.  It  is  well  known 
that  criminals  are  products  of  biological  and  social 
conditions  over  which  they  have  little  control.  The 
modern  ideal  is  coming  to  be  prevention  by  means  of 
the  betterment  of  social  organization  and  negative 
eugenics.  Healthy  and  capable  persons  in  a  decent  so- 
ciety would  be  unlikely  to  turn  out  criminals.  I  do 


178        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

not  see  how  we  can  escape  the  conclusion  that  the  saner 
penology  of  the  present  has  completely  undermined  the 
whole  juristic  basis  of  the  next  world.  Human  ethics 
and  a  supernatural  ethics  of  an  eschatological  sort 
cannot  be  dovetailed  together.  The  scene  and  motives 
of  a  crime  cannot  be  laid  in  one  world  with  that  world's 
peculiar  conditions,  and  the  punishment  dispensed  in 
another.  And  a  final  punishment  is  a  veritable  absurd- 
ity. Is  punishment  an  end  in  itself?  Are  the  wicked 
such  hopeless  creatures?  Or  does  it  simply  mean  that 
men  have  never  before  thought  of  such  things  as  indeter- 
minate sentences  and  reformation?  Prisoners  were 
hustled  away  and  never  seen  afterwards.  Punishment 
and  reward  were  easy  matters  in  the  old  days  when  jus- 
tice was  external  and  terroristic ;  we  see  to-day  that  they 
are  the  most  difficult  of  problems.  Final  judgments  by 
omniscient  judges  strike  us  as  romantic  and  even  melo- 
dramatic. Again,  we  doubt  such  facile  divisions  of 
our  mixed  humanity  as  that  between  saints  and  sinners. 
We  have  a  keener  and  more  democratic  eye  for  the 
good  in  the  most  unprepossessing  of  our  fellow  crea- 
tures. We  know  what  he  has  been  up  against  from 
his  babyhood  days,  what  his  chances,  temptations,  joys 
and  sorrows  have  been.  And  we  have  the  deep  convic- 
tion that  ghostly  judgment  after  death  would  be  ab- 
solutely meaningless. 

In  an  earlier  chapter,  we  pointed  out  that  the  belief 
in,  and  desire  for,  immortality  is  stronger  in  periods  of 
social  disorganization  than  in  periods  of  marked  social 
unity  and  happy  creativeness.  Christianity  arose  in 
just  such  a  time  of  pessimism  and  stifled  social  life. 
The  Roman  Empire  had  become  barren  of  joyous  hope- 
fulness and  spirited  endeavor.  The  citizen  was  only  a 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  179 

unit  in  a  dreary  and  monotonous  whole  ruled  from 
above.  All  through  the  Middle  Ages,  something  of 
this  suspicion  of  the  world,  this  longing  for  release 
from  earthly  things  tinged  the  interests  and  judgments 
of  the  more  spiritually-minded  men  and  women.  The 
inevitable  ethical  result  was  a  disregard  of  genuine 
human  problems  and  a  tense  exaltation  of  attitudes  of 
self-control  and  negation.  Disciplines  became  ends  in 
themselves,  which  rejected  all  relation  to  the  life  of 
every  day.  The  direction  of  ethical  life  was  away  from 
creative  activity  and  concern  with  the  more  homely 
things,  and  toward  an  abstract  contemplation  of  ideals 
seldom  put  to  the  test  of  positive  application.  The 
religious  setting  of  life  withdrew  human  energies  from 
their  rightful  and  fruitful  sphere  of  activity  and  ap- 
plied them  to  tasks  of  self-analysis  and  never-ceasing 
self-criticism.  Such  an  approach  to  life  produced  men 
who  were  saints,  men  who  were  unselfish  and  admirable 
in  almost  every  way ;  but  this  saintliness  grew  at  the 
expense  of  significant  human  achievement.  It  was  as 
though  men  forged  splendid  instruments  and  did  not 
know  how  to  use  them.  The  pity  of  it  all  is,  that  this 
mediaeval  world-view  stimulated  men  to  devotions  of  soul 
which  looked  away  from  the  arena  of  human  life  rather 
than  into  it. 

But  religion  only  revealed  what  human  nature,  itself, 
possessed.  These  capacities  for  sympathy,  love,  per- 
sistent self-discipline,  and  devotion  to  ideals  were  nat- 
ural to  man.  The  primary  fault  with  Medievalism  was 
the  inability  to  see  the  worth  of  human  things  and  the 
hypnotic  fixation  of  the  mind  upon  unreal  relations  and 
demands.  The  modern  man  admires  these  cloistered 
saints  and,  at  the  same  time,  feels  the  tragedy  and 


180        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

futility  of  this  goodness  which  wearied  itself  out  in 
vigil  and  prayer.  The  human  cost  of  this  virtue  was 
so  high  and  its  objective  use  so  small.  It  is  only  as  an 
artist  that  I  can  enjoy  reading  the  Prayers  and  Medi- 
tations of  Thomas  a  Kempis.  When  this  mood  is 
not  upon  me,  I  am  repelled  by  the  picture  of  this 
white-faced  monk  in  his  cell,  holding  in  restraint  all 
his  natural  impulses  by  means  of  the  thought  of  a 
reward  in  paradise  after  death.  Virtue  was  the  winning 
of  a  goal  set  by  his  Maker,  for  reasons  which  he  did 
not  dream  of  questioning.  "  When  I  weary  of  the  long 
night  vigils,  or  of  the  Lessons,  longer  perhaps  than 
usual,  give  me  grace  to  remember  how  great  are  the 
rewards  in  heaven  which  I  have  now  a  chance  of  gaining. 
When  the  days  of  abstinence  from  food  and  drink  are 
many,  give  me  the  power  to  fast,  and  good  health  to 
enable  me  to  carry  on  my  work;  give  me  pardon  for 
the  sins  which  I  have  committed,  keep  me  from  falling 
into  them  again,  relieve  me  from  the  punishment  they 
have  deserved,  and  give  me  a  good  hope  of  everlasting 
happiness  with  the  elect  in  the  Kingdom  of  God."  We 
feel  that  this  ethical  energy  should  have  been  used  other- 
wise and  in  the  service  of  human  beings.  Better 
Thomas  a  Kempis  than  the  man  who  is  mad  for  wealth 
and  the  lusts  of  the  flesh;  but  far  better  than  either 
is  the  sane  worker  for  things  of  good  repute.  His 
goodness  is  a  social  goodness  which  makes  life  happier 
and  fuller  of  activities  and  things  worth  while. 

The  traditional  religion  has  not  only  been,  frequently 
enough,  anti-social,  but  it  has  also  been  morally  ineffi- 
cient. Why?  Because  it  has  made  too  much  of  ten- 
sion and  too  little  of  intelligence.  Instead  of  pointing 
out  that  morality  paid  because  it  was  only  the  applica- 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  181 

tion  of  intelligence  to  human  needs,  it  set  a  standard 
of  moral  discipline  before  people  and  then  sought  to 
drive  them  to  its  attainment  by  sheer  force  of  will  and 
subjectively  aroused  emotion.  The  modern  ethical 
thinker  is  convinced  that  morality  is  but  the  harmonious 
adjustment  of  an  individual  to  his  social  group;  it  is 
the  sensible  foresight  which  selects  the  active  values 
which  attract  and  express  man's  nature. 

This  rather  blind  tension  of  traditional  religion  ap- 
pears quite  clearly  in  the  conception  of  sin.  The  set- 
ting of  this  idea  has  been  monarchic  and  terroristic. 
It  has  exhaled  an  atmosphere  of  sharp,  mystic  con- 
trasts which  were  as  unreal  as  they  were  vicious.  To 
set  a  goal  too  high  is  almost  as  bad  psychologically  as 
to  set  it  too  low.  Christianity  vaguely  felt  this  flaw 
in  its  dramatic  ethical  scheme  and  was  led  to  bring  the 
doctrine  of  God's  saving  grace  to  the  front  to  bridge 
the  fearful  gulf  caused  by  the  opposition  of  God's  per- 
fection to  man's  imperfection.  But  the  man  of  to-day 
who  is  sincere  with  himself  knows  that  this  religious 
world-ethics  is  a  meaningless  fiction.  He  can  under- 
stand why  it  arose  in  the  olden  days,  with  its  super- 
naturalism  and  juridical  ethics,  yet  he  feels  that  this 
absolutism  is  a  product  of  monarchism  and  pre-evolu- 
tionary  thinking.  Goodness  is  a  human  ideal  whose 
content  is  always  undergoing  change,  while  it  hovers 
just  beyond  man's  reach.  I  must  confess,  then,  that 
I  have  little  sympathy  with  the  gross  exaggerations  as- 
sociated with  this  word  sin.  I  know  that  I  often  fall 
short  of  my  better  moral  judgment  and,  at  such  mo- 
ments of  moral  insight,  I  experience  a  keen  regret  and 
try  to  strengthen  those  tendencies  and  activities  which 
will  aid  me  to  do  better  next  time.  But  I  know  too 


182        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

much  of  personality  on  its  biological,  psychological  and 
social  sides,  too  much  of  its  complexity  and  its  founda- 
tions to  retain  the  old  notion  of  the  self  as  an  entity 
which,  having  the  ability  to  be  godlike,  chooses  evil. 
Paul's  God  was  an  oriental  monarch ;  to  the  modern,  he 
is  a  cad.  Why,  no  sensible  teacher  asks  the  impossible 
of  his  pupils !  Yet  this  strange  relation  conceived  to 
exist  between  an  omnipotent  deity  and  his  frail  crea- 
tures, when  intensified  by  the  horizon  of  another  and 
eternal  world,  was  bound  to  develop  the  tensest  and 
most  paralyzing  of  attitudes.  No  novel  has  been  able 
to  unfold  a  plot  which  has  such  psychological  possibili- 
ties. And  the  morbid  and  exalted  religious  imagina- 
tion has  done  more  than  justice  to  them.  While  I  do 
not  for  a  moment  deny  the  strength  and  leverage  this 
ensemble  of  ideas  possesses  when  faith  is  present,  I  do 
contend  that  the  whole  creation  is  unhealthy  and  blind- 
ing arid  involves  inefficiency  as  regards  the  real  and 
pressing  problems  of  personal  and  social  development. 
The  ecclesiastic  seldom  has  a  normal  perspective.  Take 
Cardinal  Newman,  for  instance.  Can  one  deny  that 
this  subtle  personality,  for  all  his  gifts,  brought  dis- 
torting values  into  the  current  of  life?  Such  a  man 
is  certain  to  misread  movements  and  activities  and  to 
magnify  the  subjective  at  the  expense  of  the  social. 
The  individual  who  identifies  himself  with  social  proj- 
ects, able  to  elicit  his  energy  and  enthusiasm,  is  more  apt 
to  forget  the  pettier  interests  of  the  moment  in  the 
broad  sweep  of  creative  endeavor  than  is  the  person 
who  morbidly  catechizes  his  conscience.  A  formal 
morality  which  looks  inward  and  never  outward  is 
bound  to  be  inefficient.  Tension  is  no  fit  substitute  for 
intelligent  insight. 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  183 

Many  theologians  assume  that  ethics  has  a  choice 
only  between  reliance  upon  some  supernatural  power 
for  its  sanctions,  and  a  sort  of  harsh  and  haughty 
stoicism,  in  which  the  individual  stands  alone  and  by 
sheer  force  of  will  establishes  and  maintains  ideals 
which  are  alien  to  his  nature.  The  fallacy  in  such  an 
assumption  is  not  hard  to  detect.  By  his  training  in 
the  ascetic  traditions  of  Christianity  with  its  acquies- 
cence in  the  doctrine  of  original  sin,  the  theologian  is 
initiated  into  a  distorted  conception  of  human  nature 
and  of  human  relations.  While  man  is  a  complex  be- 
ing with  many  instincts  and  possibilities  to  adjust  and 
organize  in  an  efficient  and  progressive  way,  it  is  slan- 
derous to  assert  that  these  instincts  are  evil  or  that 
man,  on  the  whole,  does  not  relate  them  quite  satis- 
factorily to  a  plan  of  life.  Human  nature  is  a  sweeter, 
saner  thing  than  the  ascetic  admits ;  man  is  capable  of 
heroic  idealisms  and  of  far-reaching  sympathies  which 
express  themselves  in  the  mold  of  society.  As  a  mat- 
ter of  fact,  the  haughty  stoicism  of  which  the  religious 
writer  speaks  with  so  much  pity,  as  the  only  alternative 
to  supernatural  relations  and  sanctions,  is  a  product 
of  times  of  social  disruption  when  the  high-strung  in- 
dividual is  thrown  back  upon  himself.  To-day,  people 
live  and  think  in  groups,  with  common  hopes,  standards 
and  plans.  Their  conscience  is  a  social  conscience 
which  finds  its  supporting  echo  in  the  deeds  and  senti- 
ments of  their  companions  and  fellow  workers.  It  is 
the  supernaturalist  who  is  an  egoist  at  heart.  Even 
Mr.  Wells  is  so  dominated  by  this  anti-social  point  of 
view  that  he  falsifies  both  psychology  and  fact  in  his 
tirade  upon  the  sane  worker  for  human  values.  No 
one  who  knew  the  elements  of  modern  ethical  thought 


184        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

based,  as  it  is,  upon  an  evolutionary  social  psychology 
would  subscribe  to  the  following  nonsense :  "  The 
benevolent  atheist  stands  alone  upon  his  own  good  will, 
without  a  reference,  without  a  standard,  trusting  to 
his  own  impulse  to  goodness,  relying  upon  his  own 
moral  strength.  A  certain  immodesty,  a  certain  self- 
righteousness,  hangs  like  a  precipice  above  him.  .  .  . 
He  has  no  one  to  whom  he  can  give  himself.  He  has 
no  source  of  strength  beyond  his  own  amiable  senti- 
ments, his  conscience  speaks  with  an  unsupported  voice, 
and  no  one  watches  while  he  sleeps.  He  cannot  pray ; 
he  can  but  ejaculate.  He  has  no  real  and  living  link 
with  other  men  of  good  will."  Of  course,  one  can 
write  such  things  if  one  wishes  to.  But  the  social  re- 
former knows  that  his  problems  are  human  problems 
whose  solution  rests  upon  sentiments  of  sympathy,  en- 
lightened and  directed  by  intelligence.  They  who  seek 
for  the  advent  of  a  better  day  for  humanity  band  to- 
gether as  naturally  and  loyally  as  ever  did  the  believers 
in  the  second  coming  of  Christ. 

The  remark  is  frequently  made  that  the  modern  world 
is  tending  to  return  to  the  Greek  view  of  life.  If  by  the 
Greek  view  of  life  is  meant  the  outlook  characteristic  of 
the  Greeks  of  the  classic  period  —  the  era  of  Plato, 
Pericles,  and  Sophocles, —  there  is  much  truth  in  the 
judgment.  Human  values  are  again  coming  upper- 
most in  men's  minds.  This  life  is  not  a  sojourn  in  a 
vale  of  tears,  but  the  scene  of  the  attempts  of  socially- 
minded,  conscious  organisms  to  achieve  a  temperate  and 
fairly  happy  existence.  But  the  centuries  intervening 
have  not  been  without  their  effect ;  man's  moral  horizon 
has  been  both  deepened  and  enlarged.  Since  those 
halcyon  days,  man  has  eaten  of  the  tree  of  good  and 


RELIGION  AND  ETHICS  185 

evil,  he  has  fought  with  shadowy  monsters  and  wan- 
dered for  years  in  the  wilderness  of  helplessness  and 
pessimism,  he  has  worshiped  at  the  shrine  of  strange 
gods  and  prostrated  himself  before  the  terrors  of  his 
own  imagination.  Slowly  he  has  come  to  stand  erect 
and  look  about  him  and  see  the  world  and  himself  as 
they  actually  are.  Knowledge  has  become  his  most 
trusted  instrument,  and  democratic  sympathy  with 
human  life  his  most  cherished  guide.  With  such  a  guide 
and  with  such  an  instrument,  he  will  before  long  set 
about  to  mold  his  life  in  accordance  with  those  mellower 
ideals  which  have  grown  in  his  heart  during  his  long 
pilgrimage.  At  last,  man  is  becoming  an  adult  able 
to  stand  upon  his  feet  and  to  look  keenly  around  with 
a  measuring  glance  at  things  as  they  are.  Will  he  not 
work  for  the  sweet  fruition  of  those  human  values  which 
are  dear  to  his  very  soul  —  home,  children,  kindly  social 
intercourse,  work  which  gives  self-expression,  art, 
knowledge,  contentment,  all  suffused  with  the  vigor  of 
healthy  bodies  and  the  sleep  of  quiet  nights?  Man  will 
surely  come  to  desire  greatly,  and  achieve  magnificently, 
and  live  courageously. 

Now  that  the  ethical  degradation  of  the  industrial 
revolution  has  been  stayed  and  society  has  turned  its 
face  from  the  clatter  of  mass-production  for  its  own 
sake,  now  that  ethical  reflection  has  been  united  with 
reason  and  science  in  a  sane  realism,  now  that  sympathy 
is  abroad  in  the  land,  now  that  democracy  with  its  con- 
ception of  human  brotherhood  is  astir  throughout  the 
world,  ethics  has  secured  a  firm  foundation  in  the  free 
aspirations  of  free  men.  If  noble  character  and  ra- 
tional conduct  cannot  maintain  themselves  in  such  a 
society,  then  the  theologian  can  rightly  say  that  man  is 


186        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

by  nature  corrupt.  But  the  present  is  a  time  of  grow- 
ing loyalties  to  the  common  good  and  of  vigorous  search 
for  the  efficient  means  to  attain  it  in  greater  measure. 
The  great  spiritual  adventures  of  the  future  will  surely 
be  human  and  humane. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  INSTITUTION  — 
THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH 

EVEN  a  cursory  glance  at  the  institutional  history  of 
Christianity  is  instructive.  Beginning  as  an  essen- 
tially democratic  brotherhood  of  fellow-believers  in 
which  wisdom  and  experience,  rather  than  authority, 
guided  affairs,  the  Christian  community  gradually 
adopted  the  political  form  of  the  society  in  which  it 
found  itself.  The  very  names  of  the  church  officials  of 
whom  we  read  in  the  later  canonical  epistles  are  taken 
over  from  the  municipal  governments  of  the  time.  The 
presbyters,  or  elders,  were  old  men  selected  by  common 
consent  from  the  members  of  the  congregation  as  a 
sort  of  advisory  council.  They  were  committee-men, 
ripe  in  experience  and  capable  of  dealing  sensibly  with 
the  various  problems  sure  to  arise  from  time  to  time  in 
the  social  group.  From  among  these  elders,  overseers, 
or  bishops,  were  chosen  who  had  administrative  func- 
tions of  an  indefinite  sort.  Besides  these  officials,  there 
were  deacons,  prophets  and  teachers,  men  who  took  a 
more  or  less  conspicuous  part  in  the  life  of  the  brother- 
hood. 

As  time  elapsed,  the  Christian  communities  took  on  a 
more  formal  organization,  an  evolution  which  was  due 
to  the  stress  of  problems  which  could  not  be  met  with- 
out a  more  centralized  structure.  New  heresies  were 

187 


188        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

constantly  arising  and  leading  the  members  into  con- 
fusion; moral  disorders,  like  those  against  which  Paul 
had  to  thunder,  were  continually  appearing.  It  was 
only  too  easy  for  members  of  unorganized  groups  to  miss 
that  sense  of  a  common  outlook  which  is  so  important 
and  yet  so  difficult  to  maintain  in  an  age  of  intellectual 
and  moral  turmoil.  This  situation  was  grasped  by 
leaders  who  had  decided  views  of  their  own  as  to  the 
proper  doctrines  to  be  taught  and  the  proper  mode  of 
life  to  follow.  Under  their  guidance,  a  centralization 
of  authority  was  evolved.  The  bishop  became  the  head 
of  the  community  with  power  in  matters  of  doctrine  and 
morality.  Naturally,  the  heads  of  the  more  impor- 
tant communities,  Rome,  Antioch,  Alexandria  and  Con- 
stantinople, had  a  prestige  which  gave  their  opinions 
differential  weight.  Before  long,  councils  of  bishops 
were  called  to  decide  questions  of  doctrine.  The  period 
of  fixed  creeds  had  arrived.  Once  this  direction  was 
taken,  it  was  no  long  step  to  the  formation  of  a  church 
organization  comparable  in  complexity  to  that  of  the 
Roman  Empire  and  as  undemocratic  in  character. 
Such  a  development  was  most  natural ;  and  it  would,  in- 
deed, have  been  surprising  had  it  not  occurred.  In- 
stitutions always  possess  the  imprint  of  their  age.  It 
is  foolish,  because  unhistorical,  to  expect  ideals  out  of 
their  time. 

The  primitive  Christian  association  was  more  than  a 
church  in  the  modern  sense.  It  was  a  loyal  group  of 
like-minded  people.  It  was  a  state  within  the  state,  a 
social  unit  dominating  the  main  part  of  the  lives  of  its 
members,  and  not  merely  a  center  for  worship.  It  is 
this  aspect  of  the  early  religious  associations  which  I 
wish  to  stress ;  for  it  is  the  question,  whether  this  phase 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  189 

of  the  church  still  exists  to  justify  the  church  as  an 
institution,  into  which  I  wish  to  enquire. 

In  the  vast  loneliness  of  the  Roman  Empire,  men  felt 
the  need  to  draw  together  in  order  to  escape  the  dreari- 
ness of  life.  The  teeming  interests  and  intense  loyal- 
ties of  the  old  city-state  had  disappeared  and  left  men 
stranded  in  a  cosmopolitan  State,  ordered  from  above, 
in  which  they  had  no  vital  participation;  it  was  too 
gigantic  and  formal  to  touch  them  in  a  personal  fash- 
ion and  to  kindle  those  enthusiasms  which  lift  men  be- 
yond economic  cares.  It  was  well  to  be  a  Roman 
citizen,  but  such  an  honor  did  not  suffice  for  the  more 
homely  needs  of  everyday  existence.  In  the  days  of 
Athenian  greatness,  the  individual  was  lost  in  the 
citizen ;  in  the  Roman  Empire,  the  citizen  was  lost  in  the 
individual.  Man  is  a  social  animal  —  to  adapt  Aris- 
totle's famous  expression  —  and  the  inhabitants  of  the 
various  countries  sought  to  create  associations  of  vari- 
ous sorts  to  fill  this  gap  caused  by  the  destruction  of 
the  old  political  interests.  In  other  words,  men  tried 
to  weave  a  new  social  tissue  of  a  private  type  to  answer 
their  craving  for  companionship  and  for  the  chance  to 
do  something  worth  doing.  Remove  the  business,  ar- 
tistic, political,  trades-union,  literary  and  social  in- 
terests in  their  present  free  and  varied  form  from  mod- 
ern life,  and  we  can  gain  some  idea  of  the  unsatisfactori- 
ness  of  human  life  under  the  Empire  for  the  lower  and 
poorer  classes.  Monotonous  as  village  life  is  to-day, 
it  is  throbbing  with  life  as  compared  with  the  village 
or  tenement  district  of  ancient  days.  The  farmer  has 
his  newspaper,  the  farmer's  wife  the  magazine,  and  the 
piano,  and  the  trip  to  town.  Small  wonder  that  these 
men  and  women  of  the  Hellenistic  and  Roman  worlds 


190        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

formed  clubs  and  associations  in  which  to  escape  from 
a  disheartening  loneliness  and  feel  themselves  members 
one  of  another. 

But  the  Empire  essayed  to  stamp  out  these  brother- 
hoods, in  order  that  it  might  be  all  in  all  and  receive  the 
loyalty  and  affection  which  these  private  organizations 
evoked.  The  ancient  state  was  unable  to  conceive  that 
division  of  interests  into  public  and  private  which  is 
so  marked  a  feature  of  modern  civilization.  As  Renan 
points  out,  the  Empire  "  was  trying,  out  of  homage  to 
an  exaggerated  idea  of  the  State,  to  isolate  the  in- 
dividual, to  snap  every  moral  tie  between  man  and 
man,  to  defeat  a  legitimate  desire  of  the  poor,  the  desire 
to  press  together  in  a  little  corner  of  their  own  to  keep 
one  another  warm.  The  intolerable  sadness  insepa- 
rable from  such  a  life  seemed  worse  than  death."  Asso- 
ciations, or  clubs,  in  which  a  complete  equality  reigned 
sprang  up  on  every  side  in  spite  of  the  laws  against 
combination.  Human  relations  of  the  most  kindly  and 
intimate  sort  were  established  which  sweetened  life  and 
made  death  less  lonely.  Now  the  Christian  communi- 
ties were  just  such  associations;  while  they  added  re- 
ligious emotions  and  hopes  to  the  attractions  of  com- 
panionship. They  were  social  units  of  a  humble  and 
spontaneous  type  within  the  formal  structure  of  the  Em- 
pire. They  justified  themselves  in  a  human  as  well 
as  in  a  superhuman  way.  An  adequate  psychology  of 
religion  remains  to  be  written.  Religion  has  always 
had  its  markedly  social  side. 

Upon  the  foundation  of  this  combined  social  and 
religious  function,  the  superstructure  of  the  Church 
was  erected,  much  as  on  the  political  nature  of  man 
the  Greek  city-state  arose.  Creed  and  hierarchy  were 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  191 

inevitable  products  whose  appearance  could  have  been 
predicted,  but  they  were  expressive  of  a  certain  growing 
cumbersomeness  and  a  slowing  up  of  the  thought  and 
action  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  Henceforth,  one  of 
their  religious  duties  was  to  believe  fanatically  what 
bishops  and  councils  promulgated  and  to  obey  the 
advice  of  their  superiors  in  matters  of  conduct.  In 
this  way,  Christianity  became  a  religion  of  authority. 
We  must  not  over-idealize  the  early  Christians  —  a 
reading  of  Paul's  epistles  would  help  to  guard  us  against 
that  tendency  —  but  the  spirit  of  the  primitive  con- 
gregations was,  beyond  much  doubt,  nobler  than  that 
which  characterized  the  mobs  of  Alexandria  and  of 
Byzantium.  A  perusal  of  Hypatia,  for  example,  is 
very  apt  to  sober  one's  enthusiasm.  We  must  remem- 
ber that  the  bars  of  admission  were  lowered  as  Chris- 
tianity became  powerful  and  popular.  Selection, 
which  is  one  of  the  most  attractive  features  of  a  new 
movement,  no  longer  acted.  It  was  at  this  period  that 
Christianity  developed  its  cult  aspect.  It  became  a 
religion  of  the  imagination,  of  the  sensuous,  as  well  as 
of  the  will  and  the  intellect.  Ancient  art  and  liturgy 
gave  their  contributions  and  Christianity  moved  from 
the  catacombs  to  the  basilica  and  the  cathedral. 

As  Church  and  state  became  reconciled,  the  early 
breach  between  public  and  private  life  was  filled.  The 
religious  interest  and  its  duties  joined  themselves  to 
those  of  secular  life.  For  the  mass  of  the  people  who 
did  not  surrender  themselves  to  religion  in  the  intensive 
way  reserved  for  the  clergy,  Christianity  simply  forced 
a  new  alignment  of  social  relations  and  values.  The 
ideal  was  a  Church-directed  civilization  in  which  the 
next  world  overshadowed  this.  For  ordinary  life,  how- 


192        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

ever,  a  practical  adjustment  was  soon  reached.  Life 
was  lived  in  a  conventional  enough  way  and  the  com- 
promise was  balanced  by  the  efficacy  of  sacraments  ad- 
ministered by  the  servants  of  the  authoritative  Church, 
the  continuation  of  the  incarnation  upon  the  earth. 

In  the  chaotic  West,  overrun  by  barbarians,  society 
lost  its  ancient  form  and  became  stratified  in  accord- 
ance with  a  decentralized,  military  regime.  The 
strongly  organized,  international  Church  maintained 
itself  and  saw  an  opportunity  to  realize  its  ideal,  a 
civilization,  or  order,  guided  by  itself  and  obedient  to 
religious  values.  Should  not  the  vice-regent  of  God 
rule  upon  the  earth  and  make  the  divine  law  the  law 
of  the  nations?  In  the  conflict  between  the  Roman 
Church,  as  reorganized  by  Hildebrand,  and  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire,  we  have  a  striking  instance  of  that 
recurrent  struggle  between  the  supernatural  and  the 
secular  so  peculiar  to  the  Christian  world.  Had  not 
the  emperors  possessed  some  religious  sanction  for  their 
claims  and  authority,  they  would  have  been  completely 
overridden  by  the  popes.  It  was  the  growth  from  be- 
neath of  nationaland  human  interests  and  of  a  more 
varied  and  stimulating  social  life  that  ultimately  de- 
feated the  political  aims  of  the  Church.  Humanism 
always  flourishes  when  peace  and  contentment  are 
abroad,  and  humanism  is  the  deadliest  enemy  that 
supernaturalism  has  to  meet.  Thus  the  tradition  of 
the  Roman  Empire  tided  secular  authority  over  until 
the  rise  of  vigorous  nations  with  distinct  customs,  lan- 
guages, and  loyalties  ceased  to  make  the  imperial  and 
theocratic  aspirations  of  the  Church  practical.  But 
we  must  never  forget  that  these  aspirations  of  the 
Mediaeval  Church  were  natural  outgrowths  of  the  re- 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  193 

ligious  view  of  the  world.  If  man  is  but  a  sojourner 
here,  undergoing  his  tests  for  the  life  to  come,  who  can 
be  a  better  guide  in  all  things  than  the  divine  institu- 
tion established  by  God  himself?  The  center  of  grav- 
ity of  man's  life  falls  outside  this  world. 

But  social  tendencies  and  relations  are  always  more 
complex  and  uncontrollable  than  theory  or  doctrine 
wishes  to  allow.  Human  values  have  a  way  of  asserting 
themselves  in  all  sorts  of  unexpected  ways.  The  very 
act  of  living  forces  man  to  feel  and  achieve,  to  strive  for 
this  thing  and  for  that,  to  enter  into  warm  human 
relations  which  lead  out  into  ambitions  and  desires.  So, 
in  spite  of  the  official,  and  generally  accepted,  denial  of 
human  values,  these  sprang  up  at  the  least  encourage- 
ment and  flowered  in  custom  and  art.  Thus,  even  dur- 
ing the  Middle  Ages,  social  activities  had  their  innings 
and  fair  measure  of  attention.  Men  loved,  and  sinned, 
and  fought,  and  dreamed  much  as  they  did  in  other  days 
and  do  now.  The  thought  of  another  world  only  tem- 
pered their  moments  of  reflection  and  deepened  their 
periods  of  contrition.  There  is  good  reason  to  believe, 
moreover,  that  men  alternated  between  extremes  of 
mood  more  than  we  do  to-day  with  our  settled  horizon. 
The  mediaeval  outlook  did  not  favor  that  quiet  temper- 
ance which  the  Greeks  achieved  in  their  happiest  days. 

With  the  rise  of  the  cities  and  the  national  states 
came  the  revival  of  learning  and  a  fresh  interest  in  all 
phases  of  human  life.  The  complete  control  of  human 
life  by  a  supernaturalistic  religion  was  then  no  longer 
even  a  theoretical  possibility.  Life  became  a  thing  of 
interest  for  its  own  sake,  something  frankly  to  be  en- 
joyed. Humanism  had  once  more  appeared  in  the 
world. 


194        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

But  the  Church  had  an  organized  breadth  which 
went  far  beyond  the  purely  religions  functions  which 
Protestantism  is  inclined  to  associate  with  the  institu- 
tion. Within  this  socially  flexible  organization  arose 
the  monastic  orders  whose  ideals  varied  from  age  to  age. 
To  establish  industries,  to  clear  the  land,  to  preach  the 
nobility  of  work  and  to  foster  commerce,  to  nurse  the 
sick,  to  found  schools  and  universities,  to  distribute 
charity,  to  offer  hospitality  to  wayfarers,  to  nourish 
art  and  literature,  all  these  activities  grew  out  of  the 
initiative  of  noble  men  who  found  the  atmosphere  or 
associations  of  organized  Christianity  favorable  to  their 
endeavors.  It  was  under  the  shelter  of  religion  that 
the  finer  phases  of  morality  manifested  themselves. 
Secular  life  did  not  possess  a  stability  or  organs  ade- 
quate to  the  tasks  of  social  ethics.  Whatever  new  move- 
ment appeared  naturally  drifted  into  contact  with 
the  Church,  even  though  the  Church  was  not  certain 
what  to  do  with  it.  Sometimes  these  vital  movements, 
in  which  ethical  idealism  of  a  rare  type  was  displayed, 
almost  threatened  the  existence  of  the  hierarchical  body 
which  was  in  control  of  the  organization  through  which 
they  had  to  work.  This  was  the  situation  which  de- 
veloped as  a  result  of  the  spread  of  the  ideals  of  the 
mendicant  orders  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Such  an 
occurrence  makes  us  realize  that  the  social  life  of  the 
time  was  creative,  and  that  this  creativeness  could  with 
difficulty  be  kept  within  the  control  of  the  formal 
Church ;  yet  the  organs  which  were  necessary  for  the 
application  of  these  ideas  and  enthusiasms  were  molded 
in  accordance  with  ecclesiastical  institutions,  because 
no  other  model  was  at  hand.  Secular  life  was  too  nar- 
row to  give  either  financial  support  or  suggestions.  It 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  195 

had  so  long  been  accustomed  to  assign  the  moral  field 
to  religious  institutions. 

In  spite  of  the  undercurrent  of  criticism  against  the 
worldliness  of  the  clergy  which  discovers  itself  to  the 
historian  of  the  later  Middle  Ages,  the  social  movements 
connected  with  incorporated  Christianity  were  vital 
enough  to  justify  the  existence  of  the  Church.  It  acted 
as  the  traditional  center  of  philanthropy,  and  its  im- 
mense wealth  made  this  feature  a  real  force  among  the 
poor.  But  the  other  associated  functions  were  slowly 
separating  themselves  from  their  original  connection 
and  striking  roots  in  the  secular  life  of  the  time.  In 
place  of  the  cathedral  towns  clustered  around  the 
cathedral  and  the  bishop's  palace,  the  commercial  towns 
pushed  to  the  front  both  in  wealth  and  importance. 
The  wealthy  merchant  or  banker  vied  in  riches  with  the 
churchman.  Art  and  literature  passed  from  the  hands 
of  the  Church  to  the  laity.  This  process  was  very 
gradual,  but  steady  and  persistent.  By  the  time  of  the 
reformation,  it  was  in  full  swing.  Beneath  the  frame- 
work of  feudalism  and  the  Mediaeval  Church,  a  new 
society  had  been  forming,  far  more  complex  than  the 
old  and  full  of  potentialities  which  we  are  only  now 
beginning  to  measure.  Industry,  commerce,  geograph- 
ical discovery,  national  literature,  guilds,  municipal 
governments,  courts,  science,  secular  art,  philosophy, 
all  were  present  either  in  bud  or  in  full  flower.  Out  of 
the  fertile  and  fearless  life  which  came  from  the  inter- 
play of  these  tendencies  and  activities,  new  ideas  and 
values  were  born  and  soon  found  or  created  appropriate 
organs  for  their  expression  apart  from  the  Church. 
Try  as  it  would,  Mother  Church  could  not  cover  them 
with  her  wings.  Many  of  these  activities  were  alien  to 


196        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

her  genius  and,  as  they  waxed  in  strength  and  confi- 
dence, stepped  boldly  out  into  the  arena  of  secular  life. 
One  has  only  to  take  a  broad  survey  of  modern  so- 
ciety to  realize  how  completely  secular  life  has  found 
means  to  perform  functions  which  were  formerly  car- 
ried by  the  Church.  The  very  control  which  the 
Church  wished  to  exercise  repelled  them  and  drove  them 
into  the  world  with  its  freedom  and  tolerance.  Free 
association,  individual  enterprise,  the  creative  fervor  of 
genius,  and,  later,  governmental  policy  have  worked 
wonders  in  overcoming  the  meagerness  of  secular  life. 
Education  is  now  almost  universal,  and  so  the  masses 
live  lives  which  touch  a  myriad  interests  never  known 
to  them  in  other  days.  Art  has  broadened  its  scope 
and  now  touches  with  magic  fingers  all  phases  of  human 
life,  nature  and  man  being  alike  raised  to  a  higher 
spiritual  level  by  her  work.  Science  has  reached  out 
into  all  parts  of  nature  and  thrown  a  transforming 
light  upon  all  things.  Philosophy  has  left  the  old 
scholastic  concepts  and  mated  with  science  to  explain 
the  world  in  which  we  live.  Charity  is  giving  way  to  a 
broader  conception  of  social  justice.  In  short,  the  old 
division  of  life  into  two  spheres,  the  earthly  and  the 
spiritual,  no  longer  has  its  old  significance.  The  spir- 
itual has  made  its  home  in  man's  daily  life,  in  his  read- 
ing, his  art,  his  thinking  and  his  doing.  Wherever 
there  are  genuine  values,  there  is  the  spiritual.  Is  not 
loyalty  to  these  spiritual  values  of  human  life  coming 
to  be  the  sole  meaning  of  religion?  Is  it  within  the 
power  of  an  institution,  still  dominated  by  beliefs  hostile 
to  this  frank  humanism,  to  cherish  and  guide  the  unfold- 
ing of  the  spiritual  life  of  the  present?  That  is  the 
query  which  I  bring  with  me  when  I  contemplate  the 


THE  CATHOLIC  CHURCH  197 

Church.     Has  not  the  free  life  of  the  present  outgrown 
any  centralized  and  institutionalized  control? 

To-day,  ideas  and  enthusiasms  find  their  organs  in 
the  teeming  secular  world.  Moral  idealism  is  at  home 
upon  the  earth  in  fellowships  and  loyalties  in  which  men 
discover  much  of  their  reason  for  being.  The  pulse  of 
society  beats  time  to  the  songs  of  its  true  poets,  and 
throbs  at  the  call  to  battle  for  some  noble  achievement, 
while  the  Church  dreams  of  the  past  and  the  days  of  her 
greatness,  or  tenderly  stoops  to  comfort  those  who  cling 
to  her  sanctions  and  her  vision  of  a  heavenly  kingdom, 
not  of  this  world.  She  played  her  part,  and  she  played 
it  greatly  —  that  much  we  must  avow,  even  while  we 
point  out  her  present  limitations  —  but  the  world  has 
passed  beyond  her  tutelage  and  runs  lithesomely  and 
courageously  into  fields  where  she  cannot  bring  herself 
to  follow.  Thus  is  it,  and  thus  has  it  always  been  — 
institutions  and  ideas  have  their  period  of  usefulness 
when  they  serve  as  organizing  centers  for  social  tend- 
encies ;  but  the  time  inevitably  comes  when  they  lose 
their  creative  power  and  are  outgrown  by  the  life 
which  has  made  them  and  is  greater  than  they.  And 
yet  there  is  hope.  Will  the  dethroned  monarch  recog- 
nize the  inevitableness  of  the  massive  revolution  which 
is  surging  round  her  and  give  up  her  outgrown  pre- 
tensions, willingly  consenting  to  play  a  lesser  role  in 
full  harmony  with  the  spirit  of  the  time?  Not  yet  will 
this  voluntary  abdication  come.  But,  some  time  in  the 
future,  the  new  loyalties  will  surely  seep  into  the  Church 
and  prepare  it  for  the  great  sacrifice  in  which  it  will 
find  its  saving  service.  Modernism  can  afford  to  wait 
patiently,  for  time  fights  on  its  side. 


CHAPTER  XV 

THE  CHURCH  AS  AN  INSTITUTION  — 
PROTESTANTISM 

THE  rise  of  Protestantism  was  the  consequence  of  many 
factors  which  temporarily  combined  and  worked  in  the 
same  direction.  There  are  those  who  maintain  that  it 
was  an  unhappy  accident,  which  threw  back  the  wheels 
of  progress  some  hundreds  of  years.  But  those  who 
bewail  the  division  of  the  Christian  Church  forget  that 
division  is  a  sign  of  incompatible  tendencies  within  a 
body  not  flexible  enough  to  contain  them.  Strife  is 
irrational  only  when  we  cease  to  be  realists.  The  ap- 
pearance of  Protestantism  in  the  sixteenth  century  is 
only  one  instance  among  many  of  the  inadequacy  of  any 
one  institution  to  comprehend  the  life  of  its  time. 
Were  we  to  call  the  roll  df  the  heresies  of  the  past,  the 
names  which  would  appear  upon  the  list  would  be  far 
more  numerous  than  popular  history  records.  Just 
because  Christians  believed  that  they  possessed  a  final 
truth  they  were  intolerant  and  persecuting.  The  nat- 
ural desire  of  an  institution  to  maintain  itself  and  its 
interests  intact  added  its  force  to  this  unfortunate  char- 
acteristic. But  the  tragedy  of  the  situation  was,  that 
this  final  truth  could  not  prove  itself  by  an  appeal  to 
experience  and  reason.  It  had,  therefore,  to  resort  to 
violence.  The  logic  of  revelation  is  the  logic  of  the 

auto  da  fe.     The  logic  of  science  is  the  logic  of  tested 

198 


PROTESTANTISM  199 

fact.  Science  can  have  hope  of  agreement ;  theological 
religion  has  no  right  to  such  a  hope. 

Protestantism  had  its  ethical,  political,  economic  and 
doctrinal  sides.  It  was  not  merely  a  religious  move- 
ment. Had  it  been  so,  it  might  more  readily  have  run 
its  course  as  a  reform  movement  within  the  institutional 
life  of  the  time.  Had  the  Northern  nations  possessed 
greater  power  in  the  councils  of  the  Church,  it  is  just 
possible  that  the  change  would  have  been  brought  about 
without  the  occurrence  of  an  open  rupture.  But  the 
Church  was  too  centralized  and  too  rich  to  escape  con- 
flict with  the  growing  nationalism.  For  our  present 
purpose,  however,  this  larger  social  setting  of  Prot- 
estantism is  not  important.  What  we  wish  to  study 
is  the  religious  tendencies  covered  by  this  term.  What 
advance  did  they  contain?  What  was  the  weakness  of 
the  movement? 

The  setting  of  Protestantism  was  entirely  super- 
naturalistic.  So  far  as  the  fundamental  doctrinal  as- 
sumptions are  concerned,  there  is  practically  no  dif- 
ference between  Catholic  and  Protestant.  Protest- 
antism represented  a  reform,  and  not  a  revolution.  Or, 
to  put  it  more  deeply,  human  nature  is  such  that  the 
real  revolutions  take  centuries  of  growth  and  come  like 
the  thief  in  the  night.  The  modern  scientific  view  of 
the  world  is  revolutionary  in  the  philosophical  and  true 
sense  of  the  term ;  while  the  sharp  sectarian  conflict  is 
only  a  battle  over  secondary  things.  Since  it  has  so 
commonly  been  assumed  that  the  Protestant  reforma- 
tion represented  a  decisive  break  with  the  outlook  of  the 
Middle  Ages  and  somehow  marked  a  milestone  in  man's 
intellectual  progress,  it  may  be  worth  while  to  consider 
whether  such  really  was  the  case.  A  disinterested  study 


200        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

of  the  reformation  must,  I  feel  sure,  convince  the  stu- 
dent that  the  crisis  in  the  Church  was  concerned  more 
with  matters  of  theological  doctrine  and  church  polity 
than  with  the  ideas  underlying  Christianity.  It 
brought  no  essential  change  in  the  inherited  and  firmly 
entrenched  tale  of  the  past.  The  puritan  poet,  Milton, 
sings  of  "  man's  first  disobedience  "  in  much  the  way 
that  St.  Augustine  would  have  done.  The  weapons  of 
the  great  advance  had  not  yet  been  forged  We  are  the 
ones  who  will  be  called  upon  to  face  the  vision  of  the 
New  Spiritual  World  and  to  be  faithful  to  its  demands 
upon  our  loyalty  and  integrity.  "  The  defection  of 
the  Protestants  from  the  Roman  Catholic  Church," 
writes  Professor  Robinson,  "  is  not  connected  with  any 
decisive  intellectual  revision.  Such  ardent  emphasis 
has  been  constantly  placed  upon  the  differences  between 
Protestantism  and  Catholicism  by  representatives  of 
both  parties  that  the  close  intellectual  resemblance  of 
the  two  systems,  indeed  their  identity  in  nine  parts  out 
of  ten,  has  tended  to  escape  us.  The  early  Protestants, 
of  course,  accepted,  as  did  the  Catholics,  the  whole 
patristic  outlook  on  the  world;  their  historical  per- 
spective was  similar,  their  notions  of  the  origin  of  man, 
of  the  Bible,  with  its  types,  prophecies  and  miracles,  of 
heaven  and  hell,  of  demons  and  angels,  are  all  identical. 
.  .  .  Early  Protestantism  is,  from  an  intellectual  stand- 
point, essentially  a  phase  of  mediaeval  history." 

But  when  we  look  at  Protestantism  as  a  social  and 
religious  movement  rather  than  an  intellectual  move- 
ment, we  see  that  it  stood  for  certain  relatively  new 
emphases  which  did  indicate  a  breaking  loose  from 
mediaevalism.  Many  sincere  men  felt  the  need  for  a 
deeper,  more  personal  assurance  of  salvation  than  that 


PROTESTANTISM  201 

offered  by  the  traditional,  substantial  sacraments  of 
the  Church.  Religion  seemed  to  them  a  more  personal 
affair  than  it  had  overtly  come  to  be.  By  means  of  an 
act  of  faith,  the  individual  hoped  to  secure  a  new  rela- 
tion to  God  in  which  his  sins  were  forgiven  and  salvation 
attained.  Salvation  thus  became  a  more  internal  act 
than  it  had  been,  and  particularly  one  in  which  the 
ecclesiastical  institution  played  a  far  less  important 
part.  The  new  tendency  emphasized  the  individual  and 
personal  as  against  the  institutional  and  formal. 
Catholicism  had  inherited  too  much  ritualistic  and  mag- 
ical trapping  to  harmonize  completely  with  the  keen 
ethical  sense  of  the  younger  and  simpler  people  who 
were  growing  to  adulthood. 

A  new  movement  is  on  the  defensive  and,  when  too 
completely  estranged  from  the  institutions  of  which  it  is 
a  reform,  almost  inevitably  tends  to  be  narrow  and  in- 
tense. Now  Protestantism  was  essentially  an  em- 
phasis on  the  soul's  salvation  by  meeting  certain  re- 
quirements of  a  doctrinal  and  ethical  type,  and  so  it 
tended  to  drop  those  functions  and  relations  which  the 
Mediaeval  Church  included  within  its  scope.  It  is  this 
clear-cut  intensification  of  one  factor  and  the  exclu- 
sion of  others  which  we  must  bear  in  mind  when  we 
compare  the  early  Protestant  sects  with  the  Catholic 
Church  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

Deep  religious  fervor  easily  leads  to  narrowness,  es- 
pecially when  the  spiritual  values  regarded  as  essential 
are  subjective  and  rather  formal.  Because  confes- 
sional Protestantism  was  as  other-worldly  as  the 
Mediaeval  Church,  it  cut  itself  loose  from  aspects  of  life 
which  might  otherwise  have  mellowed  it  and  saved  it 
from  formalism  and  hardness.  We  may  laugh  with 


202        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

Swift  at  the  freaks  of  Jack,  at  his  dourness  and  sav- 
agery, his  strained  interpretation  of  the  scriptures  and 
his  lack  of  social  tact,  but  we  must,  if  we  would  be  just, 
always  bear  in  mind  the  outlook  which  Jack  had  in- 
herited. 

The  Protestant  of  to-day  does  not  usually  realize  how 
different  the  Protestantism  of  the  sixteenth  and  seven- 
teenth centuries  was  from  that  which  he  sees  around 
him.  Protestantism  has  mellowed  and  absorbed  values 
and  interests  which  it  would  once  have  repudiated  as 
irrelevant  to  the  tremendous  drama  of  salvation.  Take 
mediaeval  Catholicism,  with  its  ideal  of  a  Church-directed 
society,  its  doctrines  of  sin  and  redemption,  its  belief  in 
another  world  overshadowing  this  one,  its  strain  of 
asceticism,  and  remove  the  sacramental  power  of  the 
Church,  and  you  have  early  Protestantism  before  you. 
Instead  of  fleeing  the  world  and  its  temptations,  the 
Christian  was  ordered  to  live  in  it  like  a  sentinel  on  his 
guard.  He  was  not  to  set  his  heart  on  creaturely  com- 
forts nor  love  the  things  and  interests  of  this  life  over- 
much, but  rather  to  trample  them  underfoot  while  gaz- 
ing upwards.  No  wonder  that  the  early  Protestants 
were  a  stern  people;  they  were  a  community  of  secular 
monks.  They  had  the  joy  of  union  with  God  and  as- 
sured redemption  from  sin,  but  this  world  was  not  their 
true  home.  Whereas  the  Mediaeval  Church  had  tem- 
pered the  asceticism  of  historical  Christianity  by  the 
distinction  between  what  was  imposed  upon  clergy  and 
what  was  demanded  of  the  laity,  Protestantism  was 
unable  to  continue  this  distinction  because  all  believers 
were  priests.  All  had  to  come  up  to  the  same  high 
standard  or  risk  damnation.  This  exaltation  has  in 
large  measure  departed  from  Protestantism,  and  we  who 


PROTESTANTISM  203 

have  grown  into  a  mellower  idea  of  salvation  are  in- 
clined to  judge  this  set  of  ideals  as  narrow  and  even 
morbid.  We  forget  that  puritanism  was  the  expres- 
sion of  an  ascetic  religious  view  of  the  world. 

It  was  in  the  sphere  of  church  government  that 
Protestantism  made  its  great  changes  by  attempting  to 
return  to  the  polity  of  the  early  associational  form  of 
Christianity.  The  more  radical  forms  of  Protestant- 
ism, especially,  inaugurated  a  movement  in  the  direction 
of  what  we  now  call  democracy.  There  can  be  little 
doubt,  in  fact,  that  these  waves  of  religious  individual- 
ism assisted  the  growth  of  democratic  and  republican 
forms  of  government.  This  influence  was  unplanned 
and  relatively  accidental  because  religious  individualism 
was  more  concerned  with  the  right  to  worship  accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  conscience  than  with  political 
rights.  But  man  is  a  psychological  whole,  and  so  a 
reform  along  one  line  is  bound  to  affect  other  phases  of 
life. 

As  we  have  already  pointed  out,  the  alterations  in- 
troduced on  the  theological  side  were  by  no  means  revo- 
lutionary from  an  intellectual  standpoint.  And  yet  the 
spirit  and  mood  of  religion  was  deeply  altered.  The 
process  of  salvation  was  differently  conceived,  and  this 
led  to  the  thought  of  a  more  direct  relation  between 
man  and  God  than  had  been  admitted  in  the  older 
Church.  God  was  believed  to  have  guaranteed  redemp- 
tion to  those  who  had  faith  in  Jesus  Christ  as  the 
redeemer.  This  tenet  led  to  an  emphasis  on  the  bible 
and  on  personal  experience.  It  was  through  a  study 
of  the  bible  that  men  were  led  to  this  personal  faith, 
and  the  bible  was  accordingly  conceived  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  God  upon  earth.  What  wonder  that  it  was 


204        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

substituted  for  the  Church  and  tradition  as  an  infal- 
lible and  unchanging  authority!  The  logic  of  the 
movement  is  clear.  It  has  been  pointed  out  by  one 
scholar  that  Protestantism  introduced  the  doctrine  of 
infallibility  before  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  did. 
Calvinism  selected  the  Augustinian  dogmas  of  election 
and  original  sin  as  its  foundation,  and  used  them  in 
such  a  way  as  to  become  a  fighting  church,  a  congrega- 
tion of  the  elect,  fearless  and  self-reliant. 

Bibliolatry  soon  flourished,  and  sects  sprang  up  on 
every  hand,  ready  to  suffer  persecution  for  their  par- 
ticular interpretation  of  passages.  Theology  became 
a  series  of  fanatically  held  dogmas  supported  by  copious 
quotations.  And  the  intellectual  atmosphere  within 
which  these  dogmatic  theories  arose  was  of  the  most 
conventional  and  limited  sort.  Broadness  of  outlook 
upon  life  was  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule.  The 
general  assumption  of  the  Christian  scheme  of  the  world 
remained  unchallenged,  while  the  bitterest  disputes 
broke  out  in  regard  to  points  which  seem  to  the  edu- 
cated man  of  to-day  quite  unimportant.  Such  a  course 
of  events  was  to  be  expected,  and  could  not  have  been 
prevented.  Perhaps  it  did  more  good  than  harm,  be- 
cause it  encouraged  independence  on  the  part  of  the 
masses.  Its  only  cure  was  not  authority  but  educa- 
tion. And  the  world  was  not  yet  ready  for  universal 
education.  At  certain  periods,  a  tremendous  waste  of 
mental  and  moral  energy  is  simply  inevitable:  men  can- 
not help  going  around  and  around  in  the  same  circle  of 
ideas  in  the  most  pathetically  earnest  fashion.  The 
conditions  of  progress  are  not  always  ready.  Take 
the  knowledge  of  the  clergy.  It  was  confined  to  the 
classics,  the  patristics,  to  massive  tomes  of  theology,  to 


PROTESTANTISM  205 

the  bible  in  its  Hebrew  and  Greek  original.  It  was  not 
from  these  fields  that  enlightenment  was  to  come.  The 
truth  is,  that  Protestantism  was  slowly  modified  and 
mellowed,  almost  in  spite  of  itself,  by  the  pervasive  in- 
fluence of  the  great  world  civilization  that  grew  up 
around  it  and  to  which  it  was  more  susceptible  than  was 
the  reorganized  Catholic  Church.  Let  us  look  at  this 
point  more  closely. 

The  reformation  was  an  effect  as  much  as  a  cause. 
The  nations  were  coming  to  their  own  in  the  midst  of  a 
more  complex  social  life  full  of  human  interests  and 
values.  The  Confessional  Churches  which  sprang  up 
were  unable  to  establish  themselves  securely  enough  to 
dominate  the  civil  powers.  The  consequence  was,  that 
secular  civilization  was  released  from  the  sway  of  re- 
ligion and  its  supernaturalism.  Government,  science, 
art,  industry,  and  literature  flourished  in  a  freedom 
they  had  seldom  before  experienced.  The  disorgan- 
ization of  religious  institutions  enabled  many  tendencies, 
hitherto  kept  in  the  background  of  men's  consciousness, 
to  push  to  the  front  and  reveal  their  power  over  the 
human  soul.  Do  we  not  know  that  many  great 
mediaeval  doctors  had  to  fight  against  their  love  of  lit- 
erature and  art?  Protestantism  may  be  said  to  have 
been  an  unintentional  cause  of  the  modern  world. 

Protestantism  broke  up  into  an  array  of  sects  and 
tendencies  as  it  fell  upon  the  prism  of  human  tem- 
perament. Radical  sects  appeared,  like  the  Indepen- 
dents, the  Quakers,  the  Baptists,  the  Pietists,  and  the 
Congregationalists.  These  were  radical  in  a  social  way 
rather  than  in  an  intellectual  way.  They  were  sub- 
jective variations  of  the  inherited  motives.  Largely, 
they  represented  a  revolt  against  authoritism,  and  em- 


206        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

phasized  the  inner  light  or  a  very  mild  appeal  to  reason. 
Yet  we  must  call  them  sects,  just  because  they  had 
much  the  same  spirit  and  assumptions,  and  exaggerated 
what  must  be  regarded  as  slight  differences.  Still  their 
very  number  gave  a  milder  direction  to  religion  and 
made  the  idea  of  toleration  more  natural.  There  was 
safety  in  numbers.  On  the  intellectual  side,  the  Uni- 
tarian movement  deserves  attention  for  its  aid  in  the 
dethronement  of  the  old  dogmatic  structure.  Alongside 
of  these  more  subjective  and  emotional  offshoots  of 
Protestantism  arose  philosophical  idealism  to  add  a 
touch  of  vague  pantheism  and  a  flavor  of  kindly  mys- 
ticism. In  short,  the  confessional  type  of  Protest- 
antism mellowed  under  the  influence  of  a  more  rational 
social  organization  with  its  gentler  life.  Reason  was 
gaining  in  concreteness  and  power,  and  human  values 
were  gaining  in  attractiveness.  The  Old  Testament 
gradually  gave  way  to  the  synoptic  gospels  of  the  New, 
while  asceticism  dropped  away  like  a  mantle.  I,  my- 
self, well  remember  when  religion  was  largely  a  mat- 
ter of  taboos  on  the  moral  side.  "  Thou  shalt  not " 
outbalanced  by  far  the  suggestion  of  concrete  lines  of 
positive  endeavor.  Such  spiritualism  was  passive  and 
suspicious  rather  than  active  and  creative.  During  the 
last  thirty  years,  Protestantism  has  passed  insensibly 
into  a  gentle  religion  of  the  spirit,  sentimentally  in- 
clined toward  life  and  permeated  with  popular  notions 
of  science  and  philosophy.  The  sermon  of  the  Puritan 
concerned  itself  with  the  two  dispensations ;  the  sermon 
of  the  modern  minister  is  full  of  quotations  from  the 
poets  and  reveals  the  growing  influence  of  the  social 
sciences.  The  negative  note  is  hardly  audible.  This 


PROTESTANTISM  207 

world  and  its  spiritual  problems  occupies  the  focus  of 
attention. 

Modern  Protestantism  is  not  over  certain  of  its  creed. 
In  fact,  so  uncertain  is  it  of  the  doctrines  it  wishes  to 
champion  that  it  much  prefers  to  discuss  human  prob- 
lems, and  to  expend  its  enthusiasm  in  the  advance  of  a 
gentle  code  of  ethics  attached  to  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
of  Nazareth.  In  a  very  real  sense,  this  attitude  is  to 
its  credit,  for  it  is  positive  and  genuinely  spiritual. 
Moreover,  it  bears  witness  to  a  consciousness  of  the 
decay  of  the  supernaturalistic  perspective  which  dom- 
inated and  misled  the  world  for  so  many  centuries.  The 
spirit  and  knowledge  of  the  present  age  has  under- 
mined the  traditional  beliefs,  and  the  average  protestant 
is  too  well  educated  and  too  much  in  touch  with  current 
movements  to  be  unaware  of  this  situation.  He  is  not 
certain  whither  he  is  being  led  nor  does  he  so  very  much 
care ;  he  is  content  to  drift  with  the  tide  of  human  de- 
velopment, assured  that  the  world  is  becoming  better 
and  broader  in  its  purposes  and  possibilities.  Creed 
and  dogma  are  dropping  into  the  background  and  will 
soon  be  discarded,  while  the  spiritual  values  which  grow 
out  of,  and  express,  human  nature  and  life  are  steadily 
forging  to  the  front. 

The  church  as  an  institution  is  only  one  among  many. 
And  it  must  further  be  remembered  that  the  life  of 
society  reaches  beyond  institutions,  much  as  the  life  of 
an  organism  is  greater  than  the  habits  and  structure 
which  it  uses.  Religious  institutions  did  not  create  the 
modern  world  with  its  gigantic  advances  in  commerce, 
its  acute  applications  of  science,  its  subtle  art,  its  dar- 
ing adventures  in  living,  its  bold  philosophies,  its  high 


208        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

level  of  education,  its  experiments  in  new  social  forms. 
They  have  had  their  share  in  the  work,  no  doubt;  but 
they  have  been  acted  upon  even  more  than  they  have 
acted.  Because  of  its  lack  of  internal  unity  and  its 
antagonism  to  authority,  Protestantism  could  offer  no 
effective  barrier  to  the  growth  of  the  new  outlook. 
Often  suspicious,  it  yet  fought  in  the  open.  The  trial 
of  strength  went  against  it  ultimately  because  its  foun- 
dation was  inadequate.  Myth  cannot  fight  against 
science  and  hope  to  win.  The  verdict  of  the  hard- 
fought  contest  is  becoming  evident  to  both  winner  and 
loser.  Let  us  hope  that  the  loser  will  take  his  defeat 
manfully  and  gradually  adapt  himself  to  the  New 
World  that  is  dawning.  The  Protestant  Churches  may 
then  become  groups  of  voluntary  associations  filled  with 
high  spiritual  purpose  and  ministering  to  the  growth 
of  a  finer  social  and  economic  life.  The  main  necessity 
is  to  find  a  function  that  is  real  and  vital  in  the  judg- 
ment and  conscience  of  the  time. 

It  is  undeniable  that  the  various  churches  will  long 
play  a  beneficent  role  in  the  social  economy,  but  the 
question  may  well  be  asked  whether  this  role  would  not 
be  more  significant  and  sanely  creative  if  the  hampering 
traditions  and  beliefs  of  the  past  were  shaken  off.  For 
these  traditions  are  the  shelter  of  interpretations  and 
social  habits  which  are  ill-adapted  to  the  needs  of  the 
present.  They  slow  down  the  energy  of  institutions  and 
cloud  their  vision.  They  lead  the  sincerest  of  people  to 
use  tools  which  have  lost  edge.  For  instance,  is  not 
civic  and  moral  education  far  more  effective  than  melo- 
dramatic revivals  which  stir  people's  emotions  and 
leave  them  without  chart  and  compass  before  the 
problems  of  their  every -day  life?  The  church  must 


PROTESTANTISM  209 

learn  prevention ;  it  must  go  to  school  to  the  social  and 
mental  sciences.  Only  so  will  it  conquer  that  dilet- 
tantism which  accompanies  the  absence  of  methodical 
intelligence. 

But  the  churches  have  the  right  to  respond  that  they 
are  not  the  only  sinners  in  this  regard.  Institutions  of 
all  kinds  display  the  same  tendency  to  retardation,  to 
conservatism,  to  waste  of  energy,  the  beliefs  and  habits 
of  the  past  clinging  heavily  about  them  as  impedimenta. 
It  is  seldom  that  a  new  life  wells  up  quickly  enough 
within  them  to  break  this  inertia.  Perhaps  all  that 
the  younger  generation  has  the  right  to  ask  is  a  spirit 
of  tolerance  and  even  respect  for  all  loyalties  which 
attach  themselves  to  things  of  good  repute,  and  a  more 
catholic  admission  of  all  human  values  into  the  class  of 
spiritual  things.  The  scientist  is  working  for  things  of 
the  spirit,  and  so  is  the  artist,  and  so  is  the  social  re- 
former, and  so  is  the  educator,  and  so  is  the  day- 
laborer  who  does  his  work  for  the  sake  of  some  dear 
one. 

The  sea  of  faith  of  which  Matthew  Arnold  sang  is 
indeed  at  its  ebb ;  but  a  new  sea  of  faith  is  welling  up  in 
the  human  soul,  faith  in  humanity,  in  this  life  here  and 
now,  a  faith  in  common  things  and  common  people, 
a  faith  in  noble  things  and  their  gifted  creators,  a  faith 
founded  in  sympathy  and  in  mental  integrity  and  rooted 
in  the  actualities  of  life.  It  is  a  faith  grounded  on  the 
high  will  to  assimilate  and  carry  further  the  spiritual 
values  which  the  human  race  has  slowly  achieved  in  its 
travail  of  the  centuries.  Not  to  relinquish  but  to  sur- 
pass, not  to  deny  but  to  transform:  thus  will  the  new 
day  be  won.  Let  the  spiritual  forces  which  have  grown 
up  around  religion,  industry,  science,  philosophy,  citi- 


210        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

zenship  and  art  fall  to  with  a  will,  to  bring  some  fuller 
measure  of  the  long-dreamed-of  Kingdom  upon  this 
earth,  which  has  been  and  forever  will  be  man's  sole 
home. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION 

IN  the  preceding  pages  we  have  no  doubt  often  hurt  — 
but  we  have  hurt  to  heal.  The  good  surgeon  probes 
deeply  in  order  that  he  may  not  have  the  operation  to 
perform  again.  Even  a  minute  amount  of  diseased  tis- 
sues left  behind  can  prevent  the  return  of  vigorous  and 
creative  health.  Thus  what  may  seem  to  the  anxious 
patient  unnecessary  cruelty  may  be  the  greatest  kind- 
ness. A  sentimental  compromise  is  never  welcomed  by 
the  mature  judgment  of  the  brave  man.  And  in  this 
day  when  so  many  have  willingly  given  their  lives  for 
the  sake  of  a  human  ideal,  is  it  just  and  right  to  flinch 
in  the  spiritual  warfare  which  confronts  our  gener- 
ation? We  are  seeking  nothing  less  than  a  renaissance 
in  which  men's  energies  will  be  wisely  and  loyally 
directed  to  what  is  greatly  human  and  humanly  great. 
In  such  a  service  we  must  will  to  be  hard  on  ourselves 
and  on  others. 

In  the  past,  religion  has  only  too  often  been  formal 
and  negative  and  world-fleeing.  It  has  said  nay  to  life 
rather  than  yea.  Past  religion  rested  upon  man's  sense 
of  his  own  helplessness  in  a  world  which  he  did  not  un- 
derstand. By  the  very  instinct  of  self-preservation,  he 
created  supernatural  powers  which  were  to  be  on  his  side 
in  the  grim  and  unequal  struggle  in  which  he  was  en- 
gaged. But  this  subterfuge  by  which  he  thought  to 

conquer  had  its  treacherous  effects,  for  it  turned  man 

211 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

from  comprehending  and  mastering  his  world.  He  be- 
came but  a  pilgrim  here,  intent  on  heavenly  joys  and 
splendors,  which  threw  this  world  into  darkness.  What 
these  joys  and  splendors  were  he  hardly  knew:  yet  he 
hugged  the  thought  of  them  to  his  heart  and  despised 
things  merely  human.  And  if,  as  often  became  the 
case,  the  world  grew  upon  him,  his  conscience  was  torn 
and  tormented.  He  was  a  man  divided  against  himself, 
unable  to  throw  himself  whole-heartedly  into  any  enter- 
prise. 

But  the  humanist's  religion  is  the  religion  of  one  who 
says  yea  to  life  here  and  now,  of  one  who  is  self-reliant 
and  fearless,  intelligent  and  creative.  It  is  the  religion 
of  the  will  to  power,  of  one  who  is  hard  on  himself  and 
yet  j  oyous  in  himself.  It  is  the  religion  of  courage  and 
purpose  and  transforming  energy.  Its  motto  is, 
"  What  hath  not  man  wrought  ?  "  Its  goal  is  the  mas- 
tery of  things  that  they  may  become  servants  and  in- 
strumentalities to  man's  spiritual  comradeship.  What- 
ever mixture  of  magic,  fear,  ritual  and  adoration  re- 
ligion may  have  been  in  man's  early  days,  it  is  now,  and 
henceforth  must  be,  that  which  concerns  man's 
nobilities,  his  discovery  of,  and  loyalty  to,  the  per- 
vasive values  of  life.  The  religious  man  will  now  be  he 
who  seeks  out  causes  to  be  loyal  to,  social  mistakes  to 
correct,  wounds  to  heal,  achievements  to  further.  He 
will  be  constructive,  fearless,  loyal,  sensitive  to  the  good 
wherever  found,  a  believer  in  mankind,  a  fighter  for 
things  worth  while. 

When  old  ideas  become  enfeebled,  they  clog  the  spir- 
itual system.  Conventionality,  routine  and  sentimen- 
talism  take  the  place  of  the  fresh  vigor  which  always 
accompanies  profound  conviction.  A  gospel  cannot  be 


THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION  213 

a  heritage  enjoyed:  it  must  be  a  portion  earned.  And 
to-day,  especially,  there  is  pressing  need  for  a  brave 
criticism  of  past  standards,  succeeded  by  an  act  of  in- 
telligent will  which  presses  fearlessly  on  to  a  reformula- 
tion and  reaffirmation  of  values.  Because  the  old  re- 
ligions did  not  have  this  power  to  exalt  significant 
human  ideals,  relevant  to  the  changing  crisis  of  the 
times,  the  nations  drifted  into  the  materialism  of  com- 
mercialism and  militarism.  And  a  religion  insistent 
upon  a  rational  and  wise  interpretation  of  the  ways  of 
life  will,  alone,  be  able  to  rescue  them.  Watchwords  by 
themselves,  if  they  remain  vague  generalities  untrans- 
latable into  new  directions  of  effort,  will  fail.  What  is 
necessary  is  a  new  goal,  or  else  a  pragmatic  develop- 
ment of  past  dreams  into  programs  which  awaken 
loyalty  and  hope.  But  the  center  of  gravity  and  en- 
deavor of  such  a  religion  will  lie  within  society.  It  will 
be,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  a  humanist's  religion. 
It  will  save  men's  souls  by  making  them  worth  saving. 
For  it,  salvation  will  be  no  magical  hocus-pocus  exter- 
nal to  the  reach  and  timbre  of  man's  personality :  it  will 
be  his  loyal  and  intelligent  union  with  those  values  and 
possibilities  of  life  which  have  come  within  his  ken.  To 
convert  will  be  to  educate  and  redirect  the  energies  of 
the  soul.  And  society  will  need  conversion  as  pressingly 
as  scattered  individuals  in  slums  and  tenements.  Does 
it  to-day  stress  the  most  important  things  ?  The  State 
has  been  the  servant  of  things  as  they  are,  not  of  things 
as  they  might  be.  A  humanist's  religion  can  admit  no 
cunning  division  into  the  things  which  are  God's  and  the 
things  which  are  Caesar's.  Human  values  are  as  jealous 
as  the  Yahweh  of  Moses.  To  sin  against  them  is  to  die 
spiritually. 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

The  common  opinion  that  critical  work  is  ever 
merely  negative  is  a  great  error.  It  is  the  willing  error 
of  a  dogmatism  which  feels  itself  insecure.  It  is  the 
error  of  a  spiritual  plane  which  has  settled  into  ease 
and  hates  to  be  disturbed.  Sooner  or  later,  criticism 
leads  to  something  positive,  to  a  new  vision  and  a  new 
goal.  All  that  is  needed  is  the  patience  which  is 
founded  upon  faith  and  is  willing  to  try  all  things  in  the 
firm  belief  that  the  truth  will  prevail.  Moreover, 
criticism  has  a  positive  psychological  effect  in  that  it 
calls  attention  to  the  actual  situation  and  directs  atten- 
tion to  the  living  problems.  It  is  that  spur  to  the  soul 
which  prevents  it  from  going  to  sleep.  Without  it, 
problems  are  avoided  rather  than  sought.  Who  can 
deny  that  this  lethargy  has  been  the  disheartening  tem- 
per of  the  Christian  Church,  now  when  every  domain  of 
life  cries  aloud  for  vigorous  thought?  Surely  religion 
has  to  do  with  more  than  the  common  decencies  of  life, 
important  as  they  are.  Its  place  is  in  the  van  of  the 
fighting;  it  has  to  do  with  last  hopes  and  glimpsed 
visions,  with  what  is  to  come  as  well  as  with  what  is. 
Religion  at  its  tensest  has  to  do  with  ultimate  loyalties. 
Habit  and  tradition  are  helpless  in  such  matters,  which 
are  of  things  hoped  for  —  upon  this  earth. 

But  enough  of  the  critical  side.  We  have  said  that 
the  coming  religion  will  say  yea  to  human  life.  Yet 
it  will  not  affirm  it  in  a  blind  and  sentimental  way.  It 
will  be  realistic  and  striving.  All  great  religions  of  the 
past  have  recognized  the  tragic  aspects  of  human  life, 
its  brevity,  its  littlenesses,  its  fussy  selfishness,  its  lack 
of  vision,  its  suffering;  but  they  have  too  often  been 
led  to  despise  humanity  by  seeing  it  on  the  illimitable 
background  of  celestial  omnipotences  and  perfections. 


THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION  215 

Religion  as  loyalty  to  human  values  will  lose  no  whit  of 
this  tragic  sense,  and  yet  the  palsying  background  of 
supernaturalism  will  disappear.  Some  measure  of 
tragedy  will  remain;  but  its  morbidity  will  have  been 
separated  out  and  courageously  rejected.  Social  groups 
will  fall  to  with  a  will  to  live  largely  and  widely. 
They  will  seek  a  tingling  welfare  woven  of  the  threefold 
values  of  truth,  beauty  and  goodness.  The  saint  will 
not  be  the  groveling  sinner,  but  the  man  of  mellow  wis- 
dom. He  will  be  immersed  in  the  currents  of  life  and 
yet  master  of  himself.  He  will  be  at  once  the  servant 
of  concrete  and  compassable  ideals  and  their  possessor 
and  enjoyer. 

The  shadow  of  the  Great  War  will  lighten  to  the 
coming  generation  soon  after  peace  is  declared.  Then 
will  come  the  time  for  the  taking  of  stock  and  the  re- 
valuation of  human  endeavor.  Man  must  ask  himself 
more  seriously  than  ever  before  what  things  are  worth 
while,  and  thereupon  bend  his  political  and  economic 
instrumentalities  to  their  furtherance.  And  here  the 
religion  of  human  values  must  be  the  leader.  Does 
democracy  yet  accord  with  such  a  religion?  Or  is  it 
still  too  timid,  negative,  thin  and  uninstructed?  Amer- 
ica, for  example,  has  a  soul ;  but  it  is  a  soul  which  needs 
discipline,  instruction,  contemplation.  The  religion  of 
human  possibilities  needs  prophets  who  will  grip  men's 
souls  with  their  description  of  a  society  in  which  right- 
eousness, wisdom  and  beauty  will  reign  together.  It 
is  hard  to  say  what  thought  such  a  society  calls  up  be- 
fore us.  Yet  does  it  not  mean  that,  more  than  now  and 
increasingly,  selfish  luxury  will  be  scorned,  property 
subordinated  to  welfare,  economic  fear  lessened  to  the 
utmost,  knowledge  unenviously  exalted,  and  art  called 


216        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

into  service?  Loyalty  to  such  an  ideal  will  surely  con- 
stitute the  heart  of  the  humanist's  religion. 

The  ideals  of  a  religion  can  never  be  easy.  The 
prophets  were  stern  critics  and  hard  taskmasters ; 
Jesus  knew  that  his  true  followers  would  find  their  way 
no  primrose  path;  the  Mediaeval  saints  were  hard  on 
themselves  and  their  disciples.  We  can  generalize  this 
history  for  the  future. 

And  yet  a  larger  measure  of  joy  and  human  satis- 
faction will  play  around  religion  in  the  future  than  has 
been  the  case  in  the  past.  Because  of  its  super- 
naturalisms  and  distortions,  religious  demands  have 
often  been  morbid  and  full  of  unnecessary  friction.  Re- 
ligion has  sought  to  thwart  and  repress  human  nature 
rather  than  to  guide  and  express.  But  a  religion  of 
human  loyalty  can  be  kindly  as  well  as  exigent,  mirth- 
loving  as  well  as  stern. 

As  never  before,  spiritual  values  sing  to  us  from  life. 
They  sing  to  us  of  the  patient  love  of  the  parent  for 
the  child,  of  the  conquest  of  nature  by  trained  intellect, 
of  the  quiet  labor  of  the  skilled  workman,  of  the  steady 
loyalties  of  every-day  life,  of  the  willing  cooperation  of 
citizens,  of  the  sweetness  of  music,  of  plans  for  greater 
social  justice,  and  of  a  world  made  free  from  war. 
Spiritual  values  are  everywhere  around  us  inviting  our 
service.  He  who  asks  where  they  are  is  like  a  man  who 
asks  for  water  when  a  spring  is  bubbling  beneath  his 
feet.  And  yet  we  have  been  so  blinded  by  the  old 
ascetic  supernaturalisms  that  we  are  slow  to  realize  that 
these  simple  human  things  are  nobly  spiritual.  So  long 
as  there  are  things  worth  while,  there  will  be  spiritual 
values.  Is  not  this  positive  enough?  Need  he  who  has 
an  inalienable  treasure  fear  robbery  ? 


THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION  217 

To  put  the  situation  bluntly,  religion  must  be  sep- 
arated from  the  other-worldly  pull  of  the  traditional 
.theologies  and  be  sanely  grounded  in  the  outlook  of 
modern  knowledge.  There  is  no  need  for  a  rabid  anti- 
theism.  The  truth  is,  rather,  that  mankind  is  out- 
growing theism  in  a  gentle  and  steady  way  until  it  ceases 
to  have  any  clear  meaning.  This  is  a  hard  saying  and 
requires  justification.  In  part,  I  have  given  the  justi- 
fication in  the  preceding  pages ;  in  part,  I  have  given  it 
elsewhere.1  But  the  drift  among  thinking  people  is 
unmistakable.  With  the  imminent  solution  of  the 
mind-body  problem,  the  last  bulwark  of  the  old  super- 
naturalism  will  have  fallen.  Man  will  be  forced  to 
acknowledge  that  he  is  an  earth-child  whose  drama  has 
meaning  only  upon  her  bosom.  It  is  my  firm  conviction 
that  the  clear  realization  of  this  fact  will  startle  men 
into  insights  and  demands  of  far-reaching  import. 
May  it  not  remove  a  dead-weight  of  inhibitions  which 
has  kept  the  human  spirit  under  bonds  to  past  attitudes 
and  methods?  There  will  no  longer  be  a  divided  in- 
terest and  an  uncertain  horizon.  To  many  it  will  come 
like  a  plunge  in  cold  water :  but  may  not  such  a  plunge 
do  them  good  by  waking  them  from  their  dogmatic 
slumbers  ? 

The  interpretation  of  the  physical  world  of  which 
man  is  a  part  must  be  left  to  the  cooperative  work  of 

i  Those  who  are  interested  in  a  constructive  philosophical  posi- 
tion which  meets  the  results  of  modern  science  may  be  referred  to 
my  two  books,  Critical  Realism  and  The  Essentials  of  Philosophy. 
I  have  there  shown  that  the  mind-body  dualism  has  been  due  to  a 
false  way  of  approach.  Psychology  gives  knowledge  about  the 
functional  capacities  of  the  nervous  system  additional  to  that 
given  by  the  physical  science,  and  in  no  way  conflicting  with  it, 
and  consciousness  is  in  the  brain. 


218        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

science  and  philosophy.  These  will  give  to  us  tested 
and  critical  knowledge  of  the  processes  which  go  on 
around  us,  of  the  drift  of  the  stars  in  the  world-spaces, 
of  the  spiral  movements  of  nebular  matter,  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  elements,  of  the  integration  of  organic 
forms,  of  the  development  of  historic  life.  The  universe 
is :  it  is  meaningless  to  ask  whence  it  came,  for  it  always 
was,  and  time  is  but  a  term  for  the  changes  which  go  on 
within  it. 

But,  having  explored  the  universe  by  telescope  and 
microscope,  and  having  thus  come  to  some  understand- 
ing of  his  world,  man  must  return  again  to  his  own 
pressing  problems  and  possibilities,  to  his  need  to  inter- 
pret his  own  good,  to  his  desire  to  further  and  maintain 
those  interests  and  activities  in  which  he  finds  self-ex- 
pression. His  own  life,  as  a  realm  of  affection  and 
action,  must  rightly  be  for  him  the  significant  center 
of  the  universe.  These  urgencies,  interests,  possibilities, 
satisfactions,  loyalties  are  inalienably  human  and  valid. 
He  can  no  more  ignore  them  than  he  can  his  hunger  for 
food  and  his  thirst  for  water.  Nothing  can  rob  him 
of  the  values  which  he  has  created,  nor  can  any  one 
take  from  him  the  burden  of  courageous  endeavor.  He 
is  the  master  of  his  own  destiny  and  the  prompter  in  his 
own  drama.  In  his  tenser  moments,  the  physical  spaces 
around  his  planet  will  but  contain 

"  The  endless,  silly  m€*riment  of  stars." 

As  religion  learns  to  relinquish  theology  and  accept 
the  modern  view  of  the  world,  the  spirituality  which  it 
has  fostered  will  mate  with  reason.  Reason  by  itself  is 
not  enough ;  feeling  by  itself  is  not  enough.  What  the 
world  awaits  is  the  sane  and  kindly  ministry  of  a 


THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION  «19 

concrete  reason  to  the  goods  of  human  life.  Thinking 
and  experimentation  must  be  instrumental  to  the  pro- 
gressive betterment  of  life.  This  idea  is  not  new. 
Many  have  grasped  it  before  in  whole  or  in  part;  but 
the  setting  has  not  always  been  simple  enough.  Comte 
meant  just  such  a  humanism  in  his  religion  of  hu- 
manity, but  he  was  unable  to  cut  himself  loose  from  his 
associations  with  organized  Christianity.  There  is  no 
adequate  motive  for  the  retention  of  the  ritualism  and 
worship  of  Comtism,  nor  is  there  any  good  reason  for 
the  deification  of  humanity.  Humanity  is  not  an  entity, 
nor  is  it  a  sort  of  supreme  personality  which  may  be 
worshiped.  Religion  will  mean  the  valuing  of  expe- 
riences and  activities,  the  striving  for  their  realization, 
the  loyalty  to  their  call.  Taken  in  this  way,  religion 
will  agree  with  and  commend  the  purpose  expressed  by 
Huxley :  "  To  promote  the  increase  of  natural  knowl- 
edge and  to  forward  the  application  of  scientific  meth- 
ods of  investigation  to  all  the  problems  of  life  to  the 
best  of  my  ability,  in  the  conviction  which  has  grown 
with  my  growth,  and  strengthened  with  my  strength, 
that  there  is  no  alleviation  for  the  sufferings  of  man- 
kind except  veracity  of  thought  and  action,  and  the 
resolute  facing  of  the  world  as  it  is,  when  the  garment 
of  make-believe  by  which  pious  hands  have  hidden  its 
uglier  features  is  stripped  off."  This  outlook  has  been 
called  the  marriage  of  naturalism  with  philanthropy ;  it 
is  better  to  speak  of  it  as  the  marriage  of  naturalism 
with  humanism.  It  is  the  belief  that  a  rational  spir- 
ituality is  possible,  natural  to  man,  and,  above  all 
things,  desirable. 

But  if  men  find  their  salvation  in  love  for,  and  loyalty 
to,  values  of  various  kinds,  the  practical  question  be- 


220        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

comes  that  of  the  furtherance  and  support  of  these 
values.  What  are  some  of  the  social  conditions  of  a 
noble  life?  Surely  education,  opportunity  and  free  as- 
sociation. It  is  no  longer  granted  to  trust  the  com- 
ing of  a  supernatural  grace  which  will  illuminate  life. 
Such  subjective  illumination  is  only  too  apt  to  reflect 
the  temperament  of  the  individual  and  to  lack  that 
training  and  breadth  of  interest  which  only  education 
and  opportunity  for  a  varied  experience  can  give. 
Many  of  the  values  which  we  prize  most  highly  to-day 
need  the  soil  of  culture  and  of  a  complex  civilization  be- 
fore they  will  flourish.  To  distribute  them  widely  is  the 
dearest  hope  of  a  democracy  which  looks  beyond  the 
merely  political  aspects  of  social  institutions.  But 
such  a  distribution  is  a  goal  which  has  conditions  which 
must  be  mastered  by  the  bending  of  a  keen  social  intel- 
ligence into  the  service  of  a  genuine  desire  for  the  exten- 
sion of  well-used  leisure.  I  mean  that  the  task  of  mod- 
ern democracy  is  the  securing  of  economic  well-being 
and  a  fair  degree  of  leisure  for  the  mass  of  the  citizens 
in  order  that  they  may  have  the  time,  the  energy,  and 
the  opportunity  to  develop  themselves  and  to  put  them- 
selves cooperatively  into  touch  with  the  pleasant  and 
creative  side  of  life.  But  I  have  already  touched  upon 
these  problems  of  social  method  and  aim  in  another 
volume.1 

It  is  time  that  I  discussed  a  question  which,  I  have  no 
doubt,  has  been  hovering  in  the  background  of  many  a 
reader's  mind.  Is  it  justifiable  to  retain  the  term  re- 
ligion when  its  ancient  setting  has  been  so  completely 
discarded?  I  have  myself  asked  this  question  many  a 

i  See  especially  The  Next  Step  in  Democracy,  ch.  5. 


THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION  221 

time.  For  many  years,  I  felt  that  it  would  be  better  to 
give  up  the  word  entirely  as  indissolubly  bound  up  with 
those  ideas  and  beliefs  which  the  modern  trained  mind 
is  outgrowing.  But  I  could  not  hide  from  myself  the 
fact  that  the  consciousness  of  the  time  was  beginning  to 
employ  it  in  a  freer  and  more  constructive  way.  It  had 
sensed  the  element  of  devotion  and  loyalty  which  re- 
ligion had,  in  spite  of  its  many  shortcomings,  nourished. 
How  common  the  phrase  is  that  a  man  has  made  a  re- 
ligion of  some  interest !  The  socialist  is  said  to  make 
a  religion  of  socialism,  the  social  reformer  of  his  work 
of  constructive  philanthropy,  the  artist  of  his  art.  We 
mean  that  he  has  thrown  himself  whole-heartedly  into 
some  one  of  these  fields.  And,  positively,  this  means 
that  he  has  found  that  concrete  and  living  salvation 
which  ideal  effort  always  brings  to  a  man.  He  is  filled 
with  the  spirit  of  consuming  loyalty  to  what  he  values. 
He  has  left  the  mere  conventionalities,  the  run  of 
use-and-wont  behind  and  has  exalted  himself  with 
a  living  purpose  which  illuminates  and  concentrates  his 
being.  I  think  that  this  spirit  and  attitude  is  coming 
to  be  called  religious,  no  matter  to  what  objects  it 
attaches  itself.  Have  we  not  here  a  mark  of  identity 
which  justifies  the  retention  of  the  age-old  word? 
Morality  is  too  cold  a  word  in  the  ears  of  most  men. 
Besides,  moral  values  are  only  a  part  of  the  immense 
throng  of  appreciations  to  which  man  responds.  There 
is  need  of  a  comprehensive  term,  able  to  take  in  all  those 
interests  and  activities  which  give  life  its  variety  and 
glory.  Is  there  a  better  term  than  religion? 

But  there  must  be  no  mistake  about  the  new  setting 
of  the  term;  no  casuistic  ambiguity  must  be  encour- 
aged. We  must  be  firm  in  our  negations  of  the  old  as 


222        THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

well  as  constructive  in  our  affirmation  of  the  new.  I 
have  tried  to  show  that  the  belief  in  superhuman  spirits 
arose  in  primitive  times  when  man  knew  little  about  the 
world  in  which  he  found  himself.  Investigators  in  the 
history  of  religion  trace  the  steps  from  polydemonism 
to  polytheism  and  thence  to  henotheism  and  monotheism. 
Along  with  this  evolution,  which  reflected  changes  in 
social  organization,  went  a  corresponding  moral  trans- 
formation of  these  divine  beings.  Yet  the  setting  of  the 
outlook  was  largely  the  same  as  in  earlier  days.  Social 
relations  were  supposed  to  control  the  universe  as  a 
whole.  Nature  recognized  her  master  in  God  much  as 
the  subjects  of  a  king  greeted  him  as  their  lord.  His 
was  the  might,  majesty,  dominion  and  glory.  There  is 
a  pathetic  incident  related  of  Carlyle  which  has  mean- 
ing in  this  connection.  Mr.  Froude  told  Carlyle,  not 
long  before  the  latter's  death,  that  he  could  believe  only 
in  a  God  who  did  something.  With  a  cry  of  pain,  Car- 
lyle answered,  "  He  does  nothing."  How  can  we  har- 
monize this  cry  with  his  earlier  faith  in  an  Everlasting 
Will  and  a  Providential  Government  of  the  world?  It 
is  impossible  to  do  so.  Romantic  spiritualism  must  give 
way  to  a  humanistic  naturalism  which  sees  clearly  the 
place  of  man  in  the  world.  Morality,  science  and  art 
are  man's  creation  and  distinctive  possession.  What 
he  needs  is  a  stable,  law-abiding  environment  within 
which  to  work.  He  has  this,  and  has  gained  some  mas- 
tery of  it.  The  further  necessary  step  is  mastery  of 
himself  and  of  those  huge  institutions  which  have  grown 
up  and  now  threaten  to  make  him  circle  within  their 
orbits.  Man  has  battles  still  to  fight. 

The  religion  of  the  future  will  increasingly  be  con- 
cerned with  two  things,  virtues  and  values.     The  Greek 


THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION 

virtues  have  been  made  tenderer  by  the  Christian  virtues 
and  more  steadfast  by  that  training  of  the  will  and 
character  which  we  associate  with  puritanism.  The  ex- 
perience of  the  ages  has  deepened  and  broadened  man, 
made  him  less  hasty  in  judgment,  more  aware  of  his 
limitations,  more  realistic,  more  efficient.  At  the  same 
time,  it  has  added  that  touch  of  pathos  which  spirit- 
ualizes the  beauty  of  life.  We  believe,  also,  that  it  has 
nourished  that  sentiment  of  tenderness  for  the  homely 
fate  of  the  average  man  that  will  some  day  find  expres- 
sion in  a  fuller  democracy  than  has  as  yet  dawned 
upon  the  earth. 

But,  above  all,  religion  must  be  catholic  in  its  count 
of  values.  Wherever  there  is  loyal  endeavor,  it  will 
acknowledge  the  presence  of  the  spiritual.  It  will 
reverence  the  philosopher  who  has  found  salvation  in  the 
solution  of  complex  intellectual  problems,  the  scientist 
who  has  given  himself  to  the  whole-hearted  study  of  na- 
ture, the  missionary  who  has  devoted  himself  to  the 
spread  of  an  elevating  conception  of  life,  the  kindly 
physician  who  has  sought  to  alleviate  human  suffering, 
the  social  reformer  who  has  spent  his  life  in  agitating 
for  a  saner  social  polity,  the  artist  who  has  had  a  vision 
of  beauty  and  has  labored  to  express  it  in  such  a  way 
that  all  men  could  share  it,  the  man  and  woman  who  have 
met  the  tasks  of  every  day  with  courage  and  charity. 
And  it  will  seek  to  bring  these  values  to  closer  acquaint- 
ance with  each  other  than  has  hitherto  been  the  case. 
The  guidance  of  a  kindly  and  clear-eyed  reason  will  not 
be  regarded  with  suspicion,  for  this  human  faith  will 
have  nothing  to  fear,  because  having  no  tottering  creed 
to  sustain.  What  a  relief  it  will  be  to  have  the  narrow 
sectarianism,  the  cruel  bigotry,  the  obscurantism  of 


THE  NEXT  STEP  IN  RELIGION 

supernaturalism  purged  from  religion!  These  un- 
lovely features  of  man's  spiritual  life  had  their  rootage 
in  the  distrust  of  human  nature  and  of  human  reason, 
in  a  certain  slavishness  of  soul  continuous  with  the  dis- 
tant days  of  man's  ignorance  and  fear.  They  will 
lessen  and  pass  away  as  knowledge  increases,  as  liberty 
becomes  concrete  and  significant,  as  a  more  spiritual 
courage  grows  among  the  mass  of  men.  And,  in  my 
opinion,  there  is  nothing  more  calculated  to  hasten  the 
growth  of  this  buoyancy  and  moral  courage  than  a 
larger  measure  of  social  justice  in  the  common  affairs 
of  life. 

And,  in  this  mission  of  adjustment  and  service  be- 
tween the  various  values  of  life,  reason  will  have  a  co- 
equal as  a  helper.  Surely,  art  will  come  more  and  more 
to  its  own  in  the  life  which  is  opening  up  before  us ! 
Man's  soul  will  crave  gracious  surroundings,  the  har- 
mony of  well-constructed  dwellings,  the  restfulness  of 
dawn  and  flowers,  the  elevation  of  noble  buildings.  Ug- 
liness and  squalor  will  be  repugnant  to  him,  for  he  will 
know  their  spiritual  cost.  But  man  will  not  only  seek 
healthy  and  beautiful  surroundings,  he  will  also  be  de- 
sirous to  interpret  all  phases  of  his  life  to  himself. 
And  in  this  effort  at  interpretation  he  will  succeed  ever 
more  fully  in  seeing  the  various  sides  of  his  life  as  parts 
of  a  whole.  Art  will  set  itself  the  task  of  giving  sig- 
nificance and  depth  to  nature,  to  industry,  to  the  home, 
to  public  life,  to  science.  And,  as  art  begins  to  per- 
form this  mission  of  interpretation,  it  will  cease  to  be 
thought  of  as  a  mere  decoration,  the  plaything  of  the 
rich.  It  will  be  conceived  as  the  means  for  the  expres- 
sion of  those  various  loyalties  which  will  ennoble  and 
spiritualize  life.  As  the  human  race  grows  healthier 


THE  HUMANIST'S  RELIGION  225 

and  happier  it  will  employ  to  the  full  that  gift  of  all 
gifts  it  has  in  its  possession,  the  capacity  to  clothe 
things  with  gracious  forms  and  give  its  deepest  feelings 
a  human  voice.  Art  will  be  the  high-priest  of  the  re- 
ligion of  loyalty  to  the  values  of  life. 

To  those  accustomed  to  the  old  mythological  setting 
of  religion  with  its  glance  away  from  human  life  as  a 
whole,  this  prophecy  will  but  confirm  their  conviction 
of  the  revolutionary  character  of  the  thesis  which  this 
book  has  sought  to  champion.  But  I  feel  certain  that, 
if  they  will  permit  themselves  a  dispassionate  study  of 
the  facts,  they  will,  sooner  or  later,  be  forced  to  ac- 
knowledge the  inevitableness  of  the  conclusion.  If  re- 
ligion is  to  survive,  it  must  be  human  and  social.  It  is 
they  who  insist  upon  a  supernatural  foundation  and 
object  who  are  its  enemies.  Man's  life  is  spiritual  in  its 
own  right.  So  long  as  he  shall  dream  of  beauty  and 
goodness  and  truth  his  life  will  not  lack  religion. 


THE    END 


PRINTED    IN    THE    UNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


INDEX 


Agency,  impersonal,  117  f. ;  lim- 
its of  personal,  121  f. 

Agnosticism,  and  theodicy, 
154  f. 

Albigenses,  162 

Arminianism,  161 

Asceticism,  156;  protestant, 
202 

Attis,  23 

Attis  mysteries,  24 

Balder,  21 

Biblical  criticism,  66 

Bibliolatry,  204 

Brain,  discussion  of,  136 

Buddhism,  138 

Calvinism,  164 

Cathars,   162 

Christianity,  origins  of,  58  f . ; 
historical  approach  to,  60  f.; 
setting  of,  68  f. ;  democratic 
movements  in,  73;  in  transi- 
tion, 95  f. ;  naivete  of  doc- 
trines, 101  f. 

Christian  mythology,  28 

Church,  organization  of,  92, 
187 

Copernican  theory,  100  f. 

Creation,  stories  of,  30  f. 

Criticism,  higher,  128,  131  f. 

Demons,  Jesus's  belief  in,  127 
Devil,  a  personal,  155 
Dionysus,  18 

Dogmatism,  tendency  to,  65 
Dreams,  influence  of,  143 


Ethics,  and  early  religion, 
170  f.;  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
173  f. ;  heteronomous,  175f.; 
modern,  177  f.;  184  f. 

Evil,  for  primitive  man,  153; 
and  Satan,  156;  created  by 
God,  158;  as  illusion,  164f.; 
disappearance  of  problem  of, 
165 

Evolution,  and  myth,  41  f. ; 
biological,  104  f. 

Faith  cures,  132 

Gnosticism,  87  f. 

God,    for    Christianity,    115  f.; 

ideas  of,  159  f. 
Great  War,  2,  11 

Hades,  140 
Hell,  177 
Humanism,  192 
Humanitarianism,  5 

Immortality,  arguments  for, 
146  f . ;  and  early  peoples, 
139  f.;  and  Christianity,  142; 
philosophical  aspect  of,  148  f. 

Incarnation,  90 

Infallibility,   204 

Insanity,  146  f. 

James,  Wm.,  145 

Jesus,  75,  79  f.;  death  of,  82; 
as  Messiah,  85;  become  God, 
91;  and  the  Hebrew  prophets, 
158  f. 


227 


228 


INDEX 


Job,  154 

Kant,  Immanuel,  147  f. 
Kempis,  Thomas  a,  180 
Koran,  62 

Lang,  Andrew,  17 

Laws,  universal,  118 

Lyell,  scientific  canon  of,  132 

Magic,  44  f. 

Magicians,  50 

Manicheism,  162 

McGiffert,  quoted,  7 

Mill,  John  Stuart,  163 

Miracles,  123  f.;  of  Jesus,  127  f ; 
evidence  for,  130  f . ;  and  their 
logic,  133 

Mithraism,  23,  69. 

Monastic  orders,  194 

Monotheism,  ethical,  91,  115; 
Christian,  111  f. ;  of  Isaiah, 
158  f. 

Morality,  173 

Mythology,  14  f. 

Myths,  and  morality,  24  f . ;  sur- 
rendering of,  108 

Name,  influence  of,  51  f. 
Naturalism,  2. 
Newman,  Cardinal,  187 

Original  sin,  157 
Osiris,  23 

Paul,  70,  73 

Pauline  Christianity,  86  f . 

Philo,  90 

Prometheus,  17 

Prophets,  Hebrew,  171  f. 

Protestantism,     beginnings     of, 

93;    aspects   of,    199f.;    sects 

of,  205 


Providence,  144  f. 

Reformation,  205 

Reinach,  17 

Religion,  new  perspective  in,  6, 
10;  of  the  Hebrews,  27;  and 
magic,  53  f . ;  in  early  times, 
170;  social  side  of,  190 

Ritual,  19  f . ;  and  Christianity, 
23 

Robinson,  quoted,  200 

Roman  Empire,  189,  192 

Sacraments,  192 
Salvation,   8  f . ;    and    immortal- 
ity, 141  f.,  201 
Satan,  155 
Savior,  157 
Science,   62  f. 

Secular  life,  growth  of,  195  f. 
Sheol,  18,  140  f. 
Skepticism,  110 
Social  democracy,  5 
Spiritual,  the,  11,  196 
Spiritual  courage,  2 
Spiritualism,  11 
St.  Augustine,  159,  162 
St.  Francis,  73. 
Strauss,   64 
Synoptic  gospels,  77  f. 

Theology,  and  ethics,  164 
Totemism,  15  f. 
Tradition,  harm  of,  10 
Tyndall,  135 

Unitarian  movement,  206 
Universe,  new  view  of,  3  f. 

Wells,  H.  G.,  162,  184  f. 
Yahweh,  26  f. 


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The  Bible  at  a  Single  View 

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his  title,  to  present  a  concise  view  of  the  Bible,  a  view 
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and  prepare  the  reader  for  more  detailed  study  after- 
ward. Dr.  Moulton's  training  and  research  —  he  is  the 
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"  Immortality  needs  to  be  mortalized  and  brought  home 
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from  a  matter  of  conscience  and  duty  to  a  matter  of  poetry 
and  speculation,  resting  it  not  on  the  free  grace  of  God  but 
on  the  dim  presumption  of  man." 

The  reaction  of  a  belief  in  immortality,  its  moral  re- 
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Religion,  Its  Prophets 
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BY  JAMES  BISHOP  THOMAS,  PH.  D. 

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University  of  the  South. 


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of  the  historic  conflict  between  the  two  types  of  religion, 
which  may  be  designated  as  the  prophetic  and  the  ex- 
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logical aspects  and  implications  of  the  contest,  to  do 
justice  to  the  theological  permanence,  veracity  and 
breadth  of  vision  of  prophetism  and  to  show  how  the 
theologies  or  hierarchies  and  ecclesiasticism  were  in- 
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exploit.  Again  it  may  be  said  that  the  author  seeks 
in  this  volume  to  discover  and  state  just  what  Christian- 
ity is.  In  order  to  do  this  he  distinguishes  between 
historic  Christianity  and  the  Christianity  of  its  founder. 
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The  Christian  Man,  the  Church 
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in  a  manner  that  will  be  considered  distinctly  helpful. 

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The  Church  and  the  Man 

BY  DONALD  HANKEY 

"  Filled  with  the  wise  sincerity  of  a  religious  conviction  that  cares  little 
for  creed  and  miracle,  that  finds  the  whole  fade  mecum  of  life  in  the  simple 
facts  of  Christ's  active  work  among  men." —  Boston  Transcript. 

Are  You  Human? 

BY  WILLIAM  DEWITT  HYDE 

"  Like  a  stinging  fresh  breeze  laden  with  the  very  salt  of  life  and  vigor. 
.  .  .  Every  man  ought  to  get  and  digest  this  book." — Pacific  Churchman. 

The  Best  Man  I  Know 

BY  WILLIAM  DsWITT  HYDE 

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